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Not many sightings of the martins lately. For the last few weeks a group of them has stopped by once or twice a day, but they were not staying in the gourds overnight. Reports of fairly severe Cooper's hawk predation at a nearby colony where takes of 5 birds per day reported. Here the red rat snake was the main predator this year. Our tallies for 2007 are:
61 eggs laid in 11 nests,
53 birds hatched,
snake predation led to 30-40 birds fledged.
The cameras are off until 2008 - see you then!

During a nest check today, , an invader was found coiled in Gourd 9. .

We may have lost around 8 young to the snake. The snake will be relocated and we'll need to read up on the latest article in the Purple Martin Magazine written by local landlord Mike about his adventures with snakes and snake-guards.

Here are some snaps from the gourdcam of the babies in Gourd 12 getting a meal, and then still wanting more:

The GourdCam is back online with the babies of gourd 12 - who are just a day or two old! All the other eggs are hatched/hatching in the colony. Parents don't have any more free time

Today's nest check revealed eggs present in 11 of the 12 gourds with a total of 61 eggs at this point:

Gourd Eggs
----- ----
1 6
2 5
3 6
4 -
5 6
6 6
7 6
8 7
9 5
10 2
11 6
12 6
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Total 61