The Purple Martin season at the Venice Area Audubon Society’s campus was officially called to a close on Saturday, August 17, when a few stalwart volunteers met to take down, clean, disinfect, dry and store all 66 Purple Martin apartments that comprise our colony.

We had a good season, with 363 eggs, of which 294 hatched and of those hatchlings, 265 fledged for a 77% fledge/egg percentage. However, the season was not without drama.

One morning as we came to do a nest check a hawk flew in and scooped up one of the parents. Her feathers floated down upon us as we gazed open-mouthed and shocked at nature at work. Then there was the morning when one of the 5th grade students assisting us in a nest check said, very calmly, “There’s a snake in this apartment.” An adult volunteer said, “WHAT did you say?” And again, the student calmly replied, “There’s a snake in this apartment.” Perhaps she didn’t know how unusual this was, but in any case, we removed the snake and sent him on his way – a good distance from the colony. He had devoured all six eggs that we had counted there five days before. We hoped he enjoyed his omelet!

Our numbers were also negatively impacted by inexperienced parents. The colony consisted of a high percentage of first-time breeding couples officially termed, After the First Year (AFY) birds, and some of them had parenting problems. We saw quite a number of new hatchlings dead outside of their dwelling, probably ejected by new parents not able to keep up with the stress involved in caring for a large brood.

Nonetheless, as depicted in the bar chart, while we had fewer eggs this season than last, the percentage of hatchlings who fledged was just about the same.

Each of the cavities were full by late March and a NO VACANCY sign should have been posted. Since many of these birds will return to our site, we expect another busy season next year. This past spring we assisted the Corkscrew Regional Ecosystem Watershed Trust (CREWTrust) near Immokalee, and the WildFlower Preserve of the Lemon Bay Conservancy in Englewood in setting up Purple Martin houses. We hope that as the Purple Martins head up the west coast of Florida on their return from Brazil, they will take advantage of these new dwellings. We are successful because of a large number of devoted, dependable, enthusiastic volunteers. Thank you to each of you for your dedication to ensuring that these beautiful birds have a future.

Our clean-up team from left to right: Bill Fairbank, Bob Zittel, Donna Scudder, Robert Bartolotta, Stephanie Kulich, Barbara Zittel, Jean Pichler, Jerry Markussen, and Charlotte and Bill Kay.