Purple Martin references and resources

Find some Purple Martin references and resources at any of these links:
http://purplemartin.org/update/StarlImpact.html
http://elibrary.unm.edu/sora/JFO/v069n02/p0316-p0325.pdf
http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/projects/scp/assessments/purplemartin.pdf
http://www.purplemartinrecovery.org/Resources.html

I'll be gone for a while. Check back in a few weeks.

Purple Martin Partner news

Bill Holton and some of his monitoring partners have trapped starlings several times at the Grobschmidt Park house. No martins yet.

I have put up the house donated by Karen Johnson, on a rural FDL Co. site. I will be delivering the gourd and pole set to Scott Diehl at Wisconsin Humane this week. I gave the house donated by Marvin C. to a farmer who will paint it and put it up on his land, at the Sheb Co/FDL Co line.

Karen, Betsy, and other have continued to monitor the South Shore colony, which has approx 7 pairs. A House Sparrow pair attempted to nest, but it looks like they moved on, or were removed by the owner of this house.

I traveled to a number of areas in Fond du Lac, Calumet, and Sheboygan counties last Saturday, where I found colonies on Hwy MM in Sheb Co (only one pair), another off of Hwy HHH in Calumet Co near the west end of Charlesburg Swamp (3-4 pairs), a magnificent colony setup with multiple house near Hilbert (Manitowoc Co), which had many pairs last year, but no birds yet this year. An Amish farm on Hwy Q in FDL Co has a few pairs.

If you find others in southeastern WI, we'd like to hear about them.

a new Purple Martin house for Lakeshore State Park, Milwaukee harbor

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Thanks to the gentlemen pictured here for help in setting up a new martin house for Milwaukee's Lakeshore State Park. Thanks also to park manager Tom Kroeger for his assistance and support of this effort. Special thanks to Bill Holton, Owen Boyle, Paul Hunter, and Todd Wilson for work with drills, wrenches, locks, lifting the structure, etc. Without the efforts of all persons involved, we'd have had a lot more trouble and a lot less progress.

Now the next step is up to the martins! While working this evening in the Milwaukee Harbor, we were treated to near fly-bys from Barn Swallow, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, and Cliff Swallow - maybe they know this is meant for another swallow species - they came near and "checked it out", especially the rough-wings.

We all enjoyed the swallows in front of gorgeous evening clouds, and the martin house against the backdrop of the city.