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7/4/01:
This photo was taken at 9:50 PM, July 4th, 2001, just as Edinboro’s 34-minute fireworks display began. The fireworks are set off about 1/4 mile from the martins, out on a peninsula sticking into Edinboro Lake. The martins in the webcam gourd are in a gourd rack, adjacent to the peninsula, right near the shoreline. The martins couldn’t be much closer to the action. The rapid-fire bursts of light, and the massive decibels of percussive blasts failed to rouse them. Here the male is sleeping at top, clinging vertically to the gourd's side wall like a swift, the female is at far left, and the six young are in the center. Dark entrance hole is to right. Other years I shined a flashlight into several active martin cavities from the ground during the fireworks and never saw panicked heads bobbing up, or birds flying out. This year I watched on the web cam. When the first of about 400 blasts went off the sleeping birds only made a minor twitch. None of the other blasts even woke them. I could see bursts of light entering the gourd and could feel the earth shake. As I’ve believed all along, fireworks at night are just like a lightning and thunderstorm to martins and it doesn’t seem to faze them. This should make us all sleep easier. Of course, this doesn’t mean that neighborhood kids can set off strings of firecrackers right under your martin housing. No telling what effect that would have! |
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7/9/01:
Today the young are 24 days old. They are spending a great deal of time preening their new feathers and stretching their wings. At one point today, the colony went into a panic and flew around giving alarms calls because a human walked under the gourd rack. When the parents gave the alarm call, the six young scrambled to the back edge of the gourd, diving under each other for safety. This is an instinctual response; trying to get as far away as possible from the entrance hole and the reach of predators. |
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7/10/01:
Today the young are 25 days old. Here, two are awake at 8:24 AM, sitting with their heads out the entrance hole waiting to be fed; their four sibs are asleep, head tucked and cuddled up against each other. |
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7/15/01:
Today the six young are 30 days old and surprisingly, haven't fledged yet. This shot was taken at 11:47 PM, and shows 9 (!) birds sleeping in the gourd, (6 young, plus both parents, plus one “lost” new fledgling that came back to sleep in the wrong gourd). |
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