Martins in the public eye
Beautiful sunset at the end of the 2018 nesting season.
In 2007 Virginia Highlands Community College in Abingdon Va Erected the T-14 cedar house seen in the photo above. With the help of the DawnSong tape and a early morning dedication by Joel Keebler, the Horticulture department head at the time, the T-14 house attracted martins that first year. This was also the first establishment of a colony using only crescent Starling Resistant Entry (SRE) holes that I was involved in.
After renovating the T-14 house in January of 2017, The college purchased the 3 inch deluxe gourd rack and I installed 18 ChirpyNest singles along with 2 of the ChirpyNest 4 compartment boxes, bringing the colony total to 40 cavities. The expansion was a huge success as 48 young fledged from 15 of the ChirpyNest compartments and 36 young from 12 occupied T-14 compartments that year. .
The colony has made many students, faculty and visitors more aware of purple martins.
in 2018 the colony hosted 35 pair of purple martins and fledged 113 young and in 2019, 121 young fledged from 36 active nests.