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!