Last year, we had 4 nesting Purple Martin pair. This season has been like no other so far, with the first couple of martins arriving March 10. Since then, they literally poured in. Last nest check done last sunday, we had 23 nesting pair, 116 eggs and 4 babies so far. We're hoping for 30+ pair total this year. The Purple Martin sub-adult males are now showing up in force, and as usual, acting like rowdy kids.
We can finally say we have a Purple Martin colony established.
The Martins are here. First arrival on 3/11/2016. Let the show begin.
Purple Martin Landlords Of South Carolina on Facebook.
and the water is warming up. Had a nice paddle on Lake Juniper the other day. Got to have a look at a huge osprey nest in a cypress tree. She was not very happy. Dad was sitting in the next tree.
We built a new T-14 14-compartment martin house for this year. Sitting about 15 feet up on a 3 inch square aluminum pole with winch for maintenance, it looks very nice. All thats left now is to get it filled up with purple martins. Since we don’t really have a established colony yet, we are depending on sub-adult martins to start building. They arrive a month or so later than the adults. We’ll see what happens.
Next to the house is a rack with a 24 gourd capacity. We currenlty have 12 gourds up. If the rack starts to fill up with martins, we can always add a few.
