MartinCam.Com Blog

We'll be taking down the gourds for the year soon. Last birds sighted were two flying over the colony on Sunday July 6th. Snake predation last year may have contributed to slightly lower numbers this year and past averages. We still had success and fledged 34 birds with no predation.

Gourd A: 5 fledged
Gourd B: nest only
Gourd C: 5 fledged
Gourd D: 6 eggs, no hatching
Gourd E: 5 fledged
Gourd F: 5 eggs, 2 fledged
Gourd G: no activity
Gourd H: no activity
Gourd I: no activity
Gourd J: 5 eggs, 4 fledged, 1 died
Gourd K: 5 fledged
Gourd L: 3 eggs, 1 fledged
--------------------------
39 eggs, 27 fledged

(Revised on 18 August 2008)

Gourd E, which we've now switched the gourd camera to, revealed 5 less than one-week-old babies today. Going 3+ weeks without a nest check leads to this kind of surprise. All the other young have fledged, but this late family is keeping a cohort of birds around the colony.

During today's nest check, no real surprises. We moved the gourd-cam as the eggs in the Gourd D have not progressed - possibly abandonded? The gourd-cam is now on Gourd L, which has a single young. This gourd had the multitudes of vertically arranged leaves - now we'll get a look at the OCD bird that designed it.

During today's nest check we attached the gourd camera to Gourd D, which now has 6 eggs in it. It is the last of the big-clutch nests right now, so we hope to be able to see the cycle from hatching on. Nothing abnormal noted in any of the gourds - no sign of mites.

Today's nest check counted 16 babies and ~17 eggs.
Gourd A: 5 Young
B: nest
C: 4 Young, 1 Egg
D: 5 Eggs (new since last check)
E: Nest
F: 2 Young, 3 Eggs
G: Nest
H: Nest
I: Nest
J: 5 Eggs (new since last check)
K: 4 Young, 1 Egg
L: 1 Young, 2 Eggs

Gourd L has a huge amount of vertically stacked oak leaves - the baby is way down in there - hopefully the parents don't lose track of them!