Sunday, June 10, 2012

Baby Purple Martins

Martin eggs are white. Sparrow eggs are brown speckled and their nests fill the entire space. Martin nests are a "carpet" of leaves, grass and small sticks.
We have four Purple Martin houses, each with 12 "apartments." I look in the houses at least once a week to make sure sparrows have not built nests in them. If they do, I pull them out, Sparrows are invasive and will kill babies and adults. They also will peck the eggs or push them out. They do this to martins, bluebirds, catbirds, wrens, robins and cardinals, at least.). Here is what's growing in some of the apartments.




Baby Bluebirds

We have four bluebird boxes and here are two shots--taken one week apart--of what's in one of them.  

Summer Plants

The roadsides around Baldwin City have quite a bit of color. I took these shots yesterday with my iphone.
There is a lot of milkweed around Baldwin, but very few monarchs. I only found one.
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Baby Swallows

Swallows have returned to the same nest under our porch for five summers. I took the shot on top two weeks ago. A week later, they had doubled in size. I took more pics every few days and you can see how they have outgrown their nest.


Trying to get comfortable



One looks like it is about to jump out