April 30 NEST UPDATE

The second graders went out to once again count the eggs in the nests! They have learned that purple martins lay 1 egg a day up to 5-7 eggs. Today they witnessed this as many nests had 2-3 more eggs than Monday! They even had a chance to see a male and female bird in a nest WITH eggs! So cool! Above is White House #1 where we found both martins with eggs. Can you tell which one is the female? What is your evidence?

Green House #7-This picture shows a fully created nest. There are 5 eggs and we even saw a fresh green leaf!

This is Green House #4- Our first egg was in this nest. Students are predicting that the egg will hatch between May 9 and May 11th! What a wonderful Mother's Day for our birds!

On Thursday, April 24th, the second graders went out to check the nests! We hoped to find our first eggs, BUT none were found. However, we did find 2 really, REALLY thick nests with lots of leaves! We are inferring that the purple martins are close to laying eggs. Here are a few pictures of the nests. You will notice that one nest is made with a lot of mud! Very cool! In addition to the nests, we were surprised to open up one pod and find a momma bird! Here she is!

April 11th Nest Check

Second grade went out this afternoon and observed the purple martins! We found lots of evidence of purple martin nests but also found quite a few sparrow nests and eggs. Here are a few photos with some things for you to think about! Feel free to add comments or ask us questions!

Look at the material in the picture. Do you think it is a purple martin nest beginning?

These are both sparrow eggs. But can you tell the difference between the 2 groups of eggs? We are not sure. but we infer that they might be different kinds of sparrows. What are your thoughts?

We have observed sparrows AND purple martins going into house number 3. This is what we found today. What kind of nest is it? We do not have any purple martin eggs yet, but house number 4 has a beautiful nestand we are just waiting for that green leaf signal! Happy weekend!

April 3, 2014 Nest Check

Today all of the second graders went outside to check the martin nests and record their observations on a chart. We are happy to share that we have counted over 20 martins! Green Roof Houses These houses have been taken over by the purple martins! We have NOT seen a sparrow nest here in over a week. This was also the first place a martin pair made a nest in house number 4.

All of us are inferring that this will be the first nest to have eggs! We are just waiting for some green leaves! Here are a few more pictures of our purple martins! Enjoy!

March 10, 2014 THE MARTINS ARE HERE

After cleaning out the houses in preparation for the martins arriving back this year AND after LOTS of crazy warm and cold weather, our martins have arrived. Stay tuned for more info and pictures as our second graders begin to learn all about these wonderful birds!!

Update

In our green pods we found the following: Pod #1- Huge Purple Martin nest with lots of leaves, but no green leaves yet! Pod #2- Purple Martin Nest Pod #3- VERY big Purple Martin nest Pod #4- Purple Martin Nest Pod #5- Empty Pod #6- Purple Martin Nest Pod #7- Purple Martin Nest with 1 green leaf!! Wonder if we will have eggs anytime soon? Pod #8- Purple Martin Nest

We have NESTS!

April 15, 2013 After 3-4 weeks of watching purple martins as they glide and dive around our houses, preen their feathers and perch on the pods and whitehouse, today we saw MAJOR progress! Unlike years past, we have multiple nests that we will be monitoring. Below you will see various pictures. All the pictures below are purple martin nests. Do you know how they differ from a sparrow nest? Take some guesses! We will post a sparrow nest picture soon! to In the BIG White House....we have MANY nests and lots of pods with leaves that lead us to conclude the martins are trying to keep the sparrows out! Our PODS are a huge success!!! 6 out of the 8 pods have big purple martin nests that look close to being ready for green leaves and then eggs! We are so excited@