June 9, 2010

Today was an exciting day at the Purple Martin houses! It was quiet when I arrived, not a bird in sight! A roof from pod #7 had been blown off in the storm, so I lowered the pods and put it back. All the other pods looked the same as the day before. No new sparrow nests, but also no new additoins if more martins are building. WHile the houses were down, our sweet little pair of martins came flying over. They made lots of noise....and when I opened pod #5, I saw why! All 5 of the babies have now hatched!!! YEAH!!! It is no neat to see the varying sizes of the babies in the order they were born. The newest one is just so tiny. I did see more mites so I nervously decided to do a nest change. I read up on this ALOT in the past few days, so I new I had to go quick! I took out the nest and put it in a bucket, then I cleaned out pod#5 real good. I placed fresh cedar chips and made a little bowl to place the babies in comfortably. I picked the babies up 1 at a time to inspect for parasites...luckily they were ALL clean. One observation I made was the skin is really pink and a little see-through. Their bellies are so fat compared to their little necks. The new collage I posted above shows the process from the 4 eggs to our new 4 little miracles! The last 2 pictures are the momma and daddy coming to check on their little ones!