Colony Being Destroyed

[KathyF]

Ok, it’s been three days with no more killing of martins. I have three active nest left, hope for the best.

Hoping your colony is now safe and you can start sleeping at night again.

[rrmartins]

Thank you!! Maybe we saved it.

[mjfog]

rrmartins - Sorry about your situation. If your colony is raised and lowered on a pole with a wench driven cable and you have no predator guard in place, I'm betting on a mammalian predator, probably a rat. Rats may have a problem hiking up a steel pole but with an adjacent cable to grip, no problem. You did mention "bird netting". Whatever is killing your birds obviously has no problem climbing around the netting. I'll bet a rat could do it. Not a sparrow hawk or other hawk. They're diurnal hunters and you've described your problem a nocturnal one. It's not fire ants. My wildlife biology background rules out owls as your problem. Either a great horned or barred could easily swallow a martin whole and leave now evidence for you to photo. Plus these guys are big strong predators and would leave some obvious physical damage to your colony, not just to the birds.

Your frustrated comment, "ten years down the drain." Where does that come from? No whining. I hope you put all the ideas from folks on the forum and solve this problem. We're all pulling for you. You'll work it out.

Mike

[rrmartins]

rrmartins - Sorry about your situation. If your colony is raised and lowered on a pole with a wench driven cable and you have no predator guard in place, I'm betting on a mammalian predator, probably a rat. Rats may have a problem hiking up a steel pole but with an adjacent cable to grip, no problem. You did mention "bird netting". Whatever is killing your birds obviously has no problem climbing around the netting. I'll bet a rat could do it. Not a sparrow hawk or other hawk. They're diurnal hunters and you've described your problem a nocturnal one. It's not fire ants. My wildlife biology background rules out owls as your problem. Either a great horned or barred could easily swallow a martin whole and leave now evidence for you to photo. Plus these guys are big strong predators and would leave some obvious physical damage to your colony, not just to the birds.

Your frustrated comment, "ten years down the drain." Where does that come from? No whining. I hope you put all the ideas from folks on the forum and solve this problem. We're all pulling for you. You'll work it out.

Mike

Thank you
If you read the entire thread you’ll see that we fixed the problem!! Hopefully

[rrmartins]

I hope I killed a huge rat last night. I heard a noise, clinking sound, guess he was trying too climb the guard. Dogs ran outside and chased him from the pole to a hole under my shed. I crushed some rat poison and shook a piece of bacon in it, the bacon is gone, hopefully he’ll die. Guess a rat was the culprit.

[mayboy]

No one has mentioned flying squirrels. Everything that has been mentioned is a possible cause for the dead martins, but flying squirrels is the likely culprit. They don't need to climb up or down the pole - they can glide in from a nearby tree or utility pole, do the damage, and glide back down to the yard, fence, or tree. They do supplement their diets with birds and eggs and they would have no problem getting into even the starling proof entrances. And - they are nocturnal.

[rrmartins]

No one has mentioned flying squirrels. Everything that has been mentioned is a possible cause for the dead martins, but flying squirrels is the likely culprit. They don't need to climb up or down the pole - they can glide in from a nearby tree or utility pole, do the damage, and glide back down to the yard, fence, or tree. They do supplement their diets with birds and eggs and they would have no problem getting into even the starling proof entrances. And - they are nocturnal.

Not that I don’t disagree, but I’ve never heard of them being a issue, in the ten years I’ve been on this forum.

[KathyF]

No one has mentioned flying squirrels. Everything that has been mentioned is a possible cause for the dead martins, but flying squirrels is the likely culprit. They don't need to climb up or down the pole - they can glide in from a nearby tree or utility pole, do the damage, and glide back down to the yard, fence, or tree. They do supplement their diets with birds and eggs and they would have no problem getting into even the starling proof entrances. And - they are nocturnal.

Now that's interesting. Still, go with "Occam's Razor" - the most likely scenario....and track your progress. Hope things are still going well, "RR".

[rrmartins]

No one has mentioned flying squirrels. Everything that has been mentioned is a possible cause for the dead martins, but flying squirrels is the likely culprit. They don't need to climb up or down the pole - they can glide in from a nearby tree or utility pole, do the damage, and glide back down to the yard, fence, or tree. They do supplement their diets with birds and eggs and they would have no problem getting into even the starling proof entrances. And - they are nocturnal.

Now that's interesting. Still, go with "Occam's Razor" - the most likely scenario....and track your progress. Hope things are still going well, "RR".

Who is Razor?

[Spiderman]

Occam's razor is the problem-solving principle that essentially states that "simpler solutions are more likely to be correct than complex ones.

I have a lot of flying squirrels that go to our bird feeders at night. Have not ever had any issues with them being interested in our Martins over the years.

I think the Rat was your problem.

Hopefully you can go back to enjoying your Martins again.

[rrmartins]

So far so good.
Thank you!!

[Steve joubert]

Hey rrmartins, I have predictor five gallon bucket on pole and it looks small on picture but it large with wasp nest in it. Also a Protector and surprise to unwanted climbers. Pound is about 300 hundred feet from site . One side open and fairly large. We fish from one side.

[rrmartins]

A picture of the pond and surrounding area would be great. How big is the pond itself?

[gotham]

RRMartins, I found this thread very instructive. Since you reported no trouble after May 14 I assume the addition of the predator guard (+/- possibly having killed the rat with the poison) solved the problem.

It would be of interest to hear how your colony did throughout the rest of the purple martin season.

Gotham

[rrmartins]

Everything was fine after the problem was solved. We had two SY pair make late nest and they made it also. We only fledged twenty-two this year but the colony survived and the martins will return next year. Very valuable lesson learned that’s for sure. Hopefully we all can learn from this and be better prepared for predators against our colony’s.

[Dave Duit]

Head trauma is an indicator of a starling attack.