After a few days of rest, I met my friends Jack, Maddie and Fahad at the martin houses. When we arrived there were 9 martins perched on the starburst...it was quite a beautiful sight. We walked closer and all of them flew around us singing their familiar song. We took down the pods and of course looked in all the others first, saving the excitement for the end. There were no new drastic changes, maybe a few new pieces of grass here and there. We still are not sure if another pair is nesting, but we are hopeful. One observation we made was a LARGE pile of bird poop on the roof of one of the pods. When we opened our pod #5, the babies were all curled up and there was not a drop of poop OR nesting material! VERY STRANGE! However, I believe the mother keeps her house clean, just like most mommies! Our little guys have a busy mom, that is for sure! We are thinking we need to put more nesting material in, but I am going to read about it first. Does anyone have any thoughts about adding a nest for them? The other new observation that we made was the emerging feathers. My photos are not too clear for some reason, but the tail feathers are bright and you can see the beautiful indigo coloring. Their little bodies have emerging down feathers that are super soft and their eyes are beginning to open more. I did pick one up, careful to avoid instant poop, and it is just amazing to think that these little creatures we waited for are really here! I will be heading back to MWE on Sunday morning, so let me know your thoughts and send me an email if you would like to join me!
This is so fun and so interesting. I wish I had been there. What time are you going on Sunday? I'll be there everyday next week so let me know when you are coming up.
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