Our first egg of the season was laid on May 24th – a whole week earlier than last year. In the days since that first egg, the martins continued nest building and a few others began to lay their first eggs.
It is now countdown to hatch day! Purple Martins lay one egg per day until their clutch is finished and begin incubating the eggs when the penultimate (second to last) egg is laid. Our first nest of the season ended up with a clutch of six eggs – which means the female began incubating on the day that the fifth egg was laid. From the start of incubation, eggs typically begin hatching in fifteen days. Since we know our first egg date and clutch size, we can calculate that our first nest of the season will begin hatching on June 13th.
Season 6 of Martin TV has gone Live! Jolene, our female from the LiveCam in 2019 has returned to this site again. She laid her first egg on June 3rd. We wait in anticipation to see how many eggs she will lay. As you probably remember, she laid and successfully fledged a clutch of seven eggs back in 2019! Last year she nested at another one of our colony sites and successfully fledged a clutch of six eggs. We are so excited to see Jolene again, who is now 5 years old. She was banded, as a hatchling, at the colony site featured in our LiveCam back in 2016.
Our NestCam will be live 24/7 until all young have fledged. Jolene will being incubating in a few days and then it will be a few short weeks for hatching to begin! Click the link below to check in on the nest!
Mercedes Leofsky
PMCA Field Biologist