Gourd World

Our Purple Martin colony has grown since last year, which was the first year we put up the red house. Here are some photos I took of the birds that are inhabiting the Gourd Tower that we offered the birds earlier this year.

This first image is a sequence of photos of the same bird captured about once per second. She started off hanging from her nest hole, gazed over her shoulder, then took off in a sort of ‘trust fall.’ It’s amazing how they can just drop off, begin to take wing and hover.

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This next photo shows that we have at least three pairs in the gourds, but I think there’s a fourth pair on the top right backside.

At times the birds seems to have some serious interactions in flight outside the gourds.

The next series of pictures are part of a Gallery. Click on one then scroll through the photos in order to see the whole images.

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I’ve seen birds in the red house (which was inhabited sooner than the gourds) taking fairly large insects into their nests. I suspect those chicks will fledge soon. I haven’t observed any of the gourd birds taking food back to their nests, yet.

My favorite aspect of having this colony of Purple Martins is their vocalizations. There is a lot of emotion in those communications. It’s a cheerful sound.