On Monday, June 13, 2011, I visited the purple martins' roosting pear trees.
About 12 purple martins were circling in the sky above these trees. Behold! I
saw about 100 purple martins flying from north to south without turning toward
the 17th street area just as they had done last year. I quickly turned on the
dawn song and the martins made a U-turn and came back to investigate. As they
descended toward the 12 martins that were already flying near the roosting
site,
I turned the dawn song off.
The noise that this flock of martins made along with the 12 that were already
there, alerted other large flocks of purple that were also doing a fly-by as
they were heading for another roosting site. The dawn song was no longer
needed. I recall that last year I saw a large flock of martins as they just
flew right by as I sat in my chair and watched them disappear. After that
fly-by incident, I tried playing the dawn song for a few minutes hoping to get
the attention of the passing flocks of purple martins. I was able cause
hundreds of martins to turn around and come down to investigate. Some of the
martins left anyway. But, most of them stayed and helped us to have a
successful
2010 Purple Martins Festival.
Monday, June 13, 2011, the estimated purple martins count was 1,200 or more.
I only played the dawn song for a couple of minutes to get the attention of the
first two passing flocks of martins. I know that this is a dawn song that was
made to help the male scouting purple martins to inform the female purple
martins of discovered nesting sites. But, if it is played near roosting time,
it
will inform the martins where a roosting site has been located. I am only
basing
this premise on my own logic and my experience in 2010. I could be wrong but
the disappearing martins made the U-turn when I played the tape.
Adolph White whitea60@xxxxxxxxxxx
Richmond, Va.
P.S. Kathy Butler counted 1,000 Martins on Sunday night, June 19, 2011.
