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 how I got started
raising purple martins |
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It started as an adventure one Saturday afternoon while mowing the lawn. Normally several birds would be flying about and from time to time *swoop* by like they were playing or halfway on the brink of bombing me. It puzzled me but over the years I became amused at this behavior and figured out that all the birds were up to, was feeding off the bugs I was stirring up with the lawn mower. This spring (2000) the birds weren't around for some reason and it made me curious. I thought it might have been coz their birdhouse had been damaged from a hailstorm several years ago or maybe the dry weather. Hail storm damage and old age
There I discovered information on many aspects of the purple martin that led me to believe I could get them back. Enough information to make me set out on the task of fixing the *old martin house*. After cleaning out all the old nests (sparrows), I installed a ceiling and replaced the old broken roof. Up to snuff and ready to receive the martins I thought. It was a big attraction to birds all right! After doing more research and studying my situation, I concluded that I never had martins but plenty of sparrows and tree swallows! Years of sparrow nests had to be removed
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Copyright © 1998 to present Jeffry Blair.
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The birds were gone! Where were they? Was it because of the ill repair of their house? Heck, I wasn't even sure if it was their birdhouse in the first place and on top of that, I didn't know if they were purple martins. Clueless, other than I new something was amiss. I had become aware of *purple martins* in some way that I cannot remember and had a suspicion that what was *swooping* me were martins. I proceeded to look them up on the net to find out what may have happened to the little creatures. The first thing to do was to fix the old birdhouse. No, it was to check to see what kind of birds I had or at least figure out what I was use to having around.
The swallows made themselves right at home in the newly remodeled house and the tree swallows returned to the area and began *swooping* me as usual. I discovered that I never did have purple martins! What was I to do now? After all the work and the unearthing of what a purple martin was it only made sense to me, to keep moving forward with all the fun I was having.