My Martin house is almost 50 years old and has had birds in it every year since I was a youngster. With the change in the time and extended daylight, we had our dinner outside yesterday. As we were cleaning up I heard a single distant noise and immediately knew what it was. My Purple Martins were back, and earlier than ever. I usually expect them between the third week in March and mid April. They have been as late as 21 April, but this is the earliest I've ever seen them return. Ten days earlier than last year. Seconds after I heard the call I saw the unmistakable shape of the bird swooping across the sky and ran across the yard to raise the house that had been in the lowered position since Hurricane Florence. He buzzed the house while it was still moving up the pole and landed on the porch railing of his house before I had the rope tied off. I had really wanted to replace the pole, since it is so old, and had filled with water and split during the winter, but that'll now have to wait until the fall on this house. Since the new pole is already standing in one of the houses old bases, I'll just use it to erect a second house near the old one. I do love watching their aerial acrobatics and hearing their song. Anybody else have Purple Martin houses? Are your birds arriving early?
Gottem' No houses but they like a tree outback and more than one pair live there. Seems like some folks have been clear cutting all the brush around their places and all to our advantage! Same folks put up Bird Houses, go figure.
I've got at least one flying around my house. I've got a small mirror hanging on my front porch and he's been coming around pecking at himself in the mirror.
We have barn swallows. They follow behind me as I mow. They won't be here for at least a month. Nest in the lean-to and one year in the machine shed. But there are plenty of barns around here. Love when their chicks have fledged. They are all over the place and tattling on the tomcat trying to sneak through the field.
For some odd reason we are quite limited with the variety of birds here. Cardinals, Bluejays, a few wrens, hummingbirds and bald eagles...might get some robins passing through. Heck, not even many crows or purple grackles. And of course buzzards.
Last year was the first I've set out a feeder. Logged 21 species that actually stopped off long enough to positively identify. Two hawks I know about but have not landed, so they aren't logged.
I've only ever seen a Purple Martin on the ground once, and he was standing on an English Sparrow, so it may not count. He was so frustrated by the Sparrow that he caught it in flight with both feet and then just fell to the ground with the shocked Sparrow breaking his fall. He gave one squawk, as if to say "And stay out!" before flying back up to the house.
Blue birds,Jays,Wood ducks,Red tail hawks,Buzzards,Crows,Wrens,Mocking birds and a couple of others and Oh Yeah a loose rooster! Forgot about the couple of dozen geese that come thru like b-52's and Cranes,Bunches of cranes!
We get Towhee, Wren, Junco, Sparrow, Jays, Hummers, Dove, Robin, with Swallow and Martins in the fall. French Eagles (Buzzards) and Gulls and have an Osprey that hangs out atop an eighty foot Hemlock Fir out back, when the Eagles or Crow aren't there. Mostly, it's the Crow...
We get Robins passing through in season, sparrows, cardinals, mockingbirds, thrushes, the occasional bluejay. I've been hearing an owl at night. Had a momma turkey with chicks get stuck inside my fence a couple years back!
I love these birds, they really keep mesquitos down. I had a couple of families of these live under the eves of the house every year. They were blacker and when @hot diggity 1st posted that is what I thought he was talking about because the dark coloring is similar but I was wrong.
@Ganado, I have Barn Swallows too. They're low level swoopers and will dip a wing tip into the water on teh pond as they snap up a bug. Watching them fly through the fog over the water is amazing! Purple Martins are high level bug catchers and wouldn't waste their time on a mosquito. They'll come in from great height with their wings folded, looking like a missile, and them bust them open and stop right at their perch on the house. They're big enough that I can see them over a great distance on a clear day.
Flight school was open around the Martin house today. Looked like a dozen young birds and some more acrobatic adults.
I had expected my residents to depart around Independence Day, but some are still here. I need to spend more time watching them, but the thought occured to me that it might be a mature pair, too old to migrate again, just enjoying each other's company until the winter chill. "Grow old along with me! The best is yet to come, the last of life, for which the first was made..."
Mystery solved. There must've been two different groups visiting the house this year. One left in early July, but the group that remains has two groups of juvenile birds still in the house. They were crowding out on both ends of the first deck when I spotted them. Note how close the trees are to the house. The old pole is now nearly in the tree. I've read that the birds will not inhabit a house this close to trees, but mine return every year. I do plan to move the pole again in the fall. They've been coming back to this location for almost 20 years, and the house has had birds in it every year since 1971.
