Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire The purple martins are back.....

Its official, spring has now officially sprung.

Here in the South, purple martins are the first true Neotropical migrants to return, straight from over the rain forest in Brazil, averaging more than 300 miles/day. They feed entirely on flying insects, if it gets cold there's none of that, and a three-day fast will kill 'em.

So, when the first ones get back, if winter ain't gone they die.

OTOH if they wait too long all the best nesting sites are taken. For them its a crap shoot..... too early and if its a late spring you die.... too late and you don't have kids that year, and any given year there's about a 50% chance there ain't gonna be a next year. Lots of things kill purple martins.

The older the martin the earlier they come back, this early its the three years old and up age bracket, and only about one in eight makes it to age three.

Anyways, when the first martins come back, its spring.

Piss off.

Don't shoot the messenger..... they are a federally protected songbird






Your'n are still happily flying around high above the rain forests, travelling about Brazil in gynormous flocks, chasing dragonflies along with hundreds of thousands of their buddies, their gonads might not triple in size for another six weeks. But one by one, they get the call and start blitzing north, day and night.

Expect the first ones to show up in Montana the end of April, most will get there around mid-May.

Meadowlarks are back here..........

seems about a month early.......

purty suckers..........my fav.....next to our Eagles

My old Daddy always loved those little Martins, so we alaways had a nesting box on a pole for them in the backyard. I got to help him build them, and the last one had 12 apartments for them, 6 on each side. Kinda like a Martin condo.................

We don't get many purple Martin's up here

Dominated by cliff and barn swallows.

We should start seeing Robins end of March.

Meadowlarks are 10 days later.

Of course we're just jealous. If a robin showed up here he'd freeze his worm.

Actually it's the cedar waxwings for me. Occasionally as they migrate through they'll fill up my ornamental crab apple. Can't help but stand at the window and watch until they fill up and move on.

Robins never left here........

weird winter

7 degrees, a foot of fresh snow and a nice airy breeze here, but not Spring by any stretch of the imagination!!!!!!

Got two of the high rise Martin Houses to put up this week.

Mike, I'm thinking of putting them up by the stock pond this year. About 75 yards from where they were the past couple years.

Should that be ok to do? Closer to water.

A couple birds just showed up at my place.

Artic Redpols. Haven't seen them in years!

I don't think it's a good sign when "artic" birds start showing up.


They are chowing down on the spilled safflower on the back of my pickup.

Wait til the Yeti that's been hibernating in your barn wakes up this spring!

Spring is near.

Nearer than farther anyway.

I dont trust it for a second.

Its a good two and a half months before purple martinis show up here- if they show. The Martin houses are typically taken over by starlings or English sparrows which provide sporty shooting getting rid of them.

My favored bird is the kestrel and this reminds me I need to do some repairs to the nest box. People traveling by remark on the large number of bluebird houses I have up and how I must like them. I usually smile and say I do like bluebirds but it is less often I add that I like bluebirds as they offer food for the kestrels.

As an aside, we have had a couple of robins and as many as a dozen mourning doves here all winter. Some doves seem to always be around every year though robins only occasionally.

Absolutely not if you have martins already. Or move just one and see what happens.

They strongly prefer frequent human activity around the nest, from untold centuries of Indians putting up gourds around their cornfields, martins chase away crows better’n scarecrows. They could give a rip about water close by, they cruise at about 40mph and they get most of their water from their food.

What they are is high altitude dragonfly specialists. When feeding young they are almost entirely dependent on about a mile-wide window of sky 500 feet and up over the colony. They take a variety of the larger insects moving through up there but you can pretty much predict how many of their young will survive by how many big dragonflies the adults are bringing in.

I've heard reports of snow geese about 50 miles south of here. but no seen any yet. Insect consumers are still a couple months out.

Some Beldings ground squirrels have emerged.

i saw a bluebird at the box today. thats dang early for here