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It looks like the end of the 2003 Martin season is upon us here in Florida. A few birds do drop by the colony once or so a day, but are not present as before. The last 2 young have fledged. I have noticed a small roost of about a dozen birds on a high power pole/line about 3 blocks west of here. Soon we'll take the colony houses down and the cameras will be off until next year - see you then!

Todays nest check, necessitated by a required gourd-cam battery change, revealed good news for the martins, and bad news for the imperial mite legions...no mite infestations in any of the gourds. It seems that either tobacco leaves or the peppermint soap/oil on lid rims is doing the trick. The only mites seen this season have been on the first gourd-cam lid - which was not coated with peppermint oil prior to the first installation.

That damn sparrow made the mistake of landing and staying in the oak tree next to the martin gourds, so I went into action...I had pre-rigged a beer bottle with "sticky match" and a dozen "Black Cat" brand bottle rockets. Sticky match is tape with gunpowder in it (it's nasty, slightly burned me today) and it allows lighting all of the rockets at once. Of the 12, maybe 2 or 3 went off near the little bastard, who already knows I don't like him...Maybe he'll go away for a while. I want to employ stronger measures, of course, but this way at least we're warning him. If he gets a mate, it's time to shoot them both!
JMR

During a camera battery switch, the unhatched eggs in gourd #11 were inspected. 2 are unbroken, the 3rd is buried down deep, possibly stuck to the bottom of the gourd. 2 healthy young remain in #11.
The #8 and #12 birds are due to fledge any time.

2 new babies in gourd #11, more should be following shortly. Check the gourd-cam for pictures. (Sometimes when the cameras are down we are capturing video from the gourd-cam.)