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Purple Martins Return to the Rookery!

Sunday, February 02, 2025 5:56 PM | Cynthia Woodard (Administrator)
 
Fourteen volunteers helped setup 48 gourds on Saturday, January 25th.

The first Purple Martin of the season returned to the Audubon Rookery from Brazil, just before the New Year! That’s the earliest arrival since we first started providing apartments for this species. So, on January 9th, Duke Snyder, Neil Milligan and Bob Zittel erected the T-14, a wooden house containing 14 apartments, with four gourds attached beneath the structure. It will provide apartments for 18 mating pairs of birds.

The T-14 is a little tricky to assemble, almost like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, so we relied on these experts to fit the parts together. Then, we waited, and soon other reports verified that more martins were in our area.

On January 25, a crew of 14 volunteers arrived to assist in preparing 48 gourds with pine straw and then hung them, in numeric order, on our other two poles. We can now accommodate 66 breeding pairs of martins.

In several weeks, when we see evidence of mating, we will contact our volunteers to start monitoring the activities of the Martins every five days. If you would like your name to be added to that list, please contact Barbara Zittel at bzittel@live.com. Thank you for all your support.

- Barbara Zittel

   
The T-14 pre-assembly. Duke Snyder, Neil Milligan and Bob Zittel beneath erected T-14.


   
Purple Martins checking out apartments.  


INFO

Email: info@veniceaudubon.org

Telephone: 941-496-8984

Sarasota County Call Center: 941-861-5000 (General information and directions)

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