Premature Purple Martin Fledglings

Last night for me was spent mostly on our front porch with binoculars glued to my eyes.  Why?

We have four posts full of purple martin gourds out front.  Each year this set of purple martins (Progne subis) makes its return from South America to our front yard.  They nest in the gourds (some real, some plastic) and raise their young.  It's always pleasant to watch them trickle in and hear their happy, content cries as they settle onto their familiar perches and fly high up into the sky and low across the fields.

One of the poles of purple martin gourds.  You can see some perched, some possibly tending to young inside gourds, and some immatures peeking out of the holes.

Right now, it is about time for the immatures to begin fledging.  They aren't all ready to fly at once though.  Usually in the morning, the ones that are will take off to attempt their first flight.  Yesterday afternoon, it was oppressively hot, overcast, and dark clouds indicating developing storms just to our south were bubbling up quickly near the horizon above the treeline.  I went over to pull one of the cars over to be put in the garage before the storm began, and as I turned the key, I looked out the windshield into the curve of our driveway, about 15 feet from the purple martin gourds, and saw an immature martin wobbling in the gravel, fledged too early and unable to fly.  I pulled the car over toward the garage, driving as far as possible from the little bird, and got my dad's attention to tell him.  He's the reason I know any of this--always an avid birdwatcher.

Hoping that it was just resting or something, we kept an eye on it, worried about the lightning and strong winds the weather reports were describing, and lamented the fact that it chose right then to try its wings, right before a gusty storm, in the afternoon when it would usually, by nature, try in the morning.  Dad did not want to try to move it yet, because scaring it could do more damage if it freaked out and hurt itself, or if the commotion frightened others into fledging too early right then as well.  Soon it hopped over up onto the Have-A-Hart trap by the garden, below the gourds, which we have in an attempt to prevent more of the record number of nests lost this year to predation around our property.  Based on evidence, Dad thinks it is raccoons, but they just keep coming.  It would be tragic if they decide to attempt the purple martin colony.

Luckily for all, the storm did not amount to much quite where we were, so aside from some lightning in the area, but not super close, it wasn't bad, but still the little fledgling remained.  Finally, as it got close to dark, Dad made the decision.  Obviously, we couldn't just leave it on the ground right on top of the trap, and he had read that you can put them back up into an empty gourd, and the parents will still feed them.  So, armed with a soft net and hopefulness, Dad slowly walked over to the baby martin and picked it up, gently.  I followed at a distance with a ladder so he could climb up and transplant the little bird.  In calming tones, he placed it in gourd on the shortest pole (since we didn't know which it came from) so if it fell again, it would at least have a little less distance to fall.  Dad said he could tell that it wasn't even really close to being ready.  Then, we slowly walked away to keep watch a bit longer.  From the porch, I watched the hole closely through binoculars and was glad to see what we assume to be its parents tending to the little bird.

A few minutes later, it tried again.  Same result.  This time our quiet address to it was jokingly a bit less sympathetic.  It was then that the ground began to become a bit more populated.  Dad noticed another fledgling around the far corner of the house on a medium-sized ornamental fruit tree.  It didn't move the rest of the evening.  Then there was another premature jumper on the ground in the grass a bit further from the colony which could fly just above the ground but apparently not much more.  Dad placed it inside the plastic fence around one of the raised beds in the garden just below the gourds, hoping that that would at least shield it a bit more from night time predators.  Then, another immature was being mobbed by a surprising number of adults, which they apparently often do--they harass young males for awhile in the territory or something.  There were just so many!  That bird was also transported to a raised bed for safety when it couldn't get of the ground again.  There really wasn't a lot more than that to be done.  It is nature, and things happen.  It's just hard to watch sometimes, and hard to find the little piles of feathers on the ground in the morning when something has happened.

Sitting on the porch watching the first bird sit on the animal trap, I had kind of hoped to watch it finally taking flight, to witness that small, but special moment.  What we did see though was technically no less interesting or exciting.  What we saw was how nature works.  Not every bird fledges when it is ready.  Sometimes it is too soon, and sometimes I'm sure they wait a bit longer than they have to, by instinct, or perhaps because of environmental conditions like weather events, though I may be overestimating that influence.  Reflecting on this, I can notice a few parallels in a way in my own life.  I've had a few things, beyond my control, that have delayed my flight into my "real world."  I'm ready for my calm, hopefully sunny morning