For those of you who follow this column closely and have contacted me to expressed their condolences about the story of the early demise of all 25 of my Purple Martin babies last summer, I have good news. I am happy to announce that one year after the disaster, the martins are back, and they are having babies again.

My Purple Martin colony started about seven years ago when I put up an old beat up metal martin house, apartment style, at my lake cabin. I was thrilled when two pair of martins took up residency in the very first spring the house was up. All that spring and summer I watched very closely the daily comings and goings of this largest member of the swallow family. I was thrilled to have my very own Purple Martin colony.

Over the ensuing years my martin colony grew. No a lot, just a little bit each year. From two pair in the beginning to about eight pair last summer. Each morning I would be greeted by the martin’s cheerful calls as they swooped into the old metal house. Everything was going great and it appeared that my martins were here to stay.

Last summer everything was going great. I had a record number of adult birds and they seemed to be all breeding. Doing my regular checks I counted 25 healthy and happy babies. They parents were bringing in large amounts of insects, particularly dragonflies, to feed the young which provided many hours of visual enjoyment for me. I was having thoughts of adding another complex of houses and expanding my colony to accommodate all these new family members. However disaster was about to strike in the form of a raccoon. Or at least I think it was a raccoon. I never really saw the perpetrator.

Over three consecutive evenings last summer, one by one the baby martins were pulled from their nests and eaten. In the morning all I would find was bits and pieces such as wings and tails at the base of the martin house. All the adults seemed to be accounted for and doing well. But now the adults had no reason to stick around.

I watched as the adults tried to figure out what was going on. They wanted to feed their babies, as they had been doing for nearly two weeks already, but when they showed up with a beak full of insects there were no tiny mouths to feed. Slowly over a 10-15 day period the adult martins stopped coming back to the colony. One of the nice things about having a Purple Martin colony is they spend much of the summer at the colony. Unlike other birds who once the babies leave the nest they never come back. Martins are home-bodies and they are very loyal to the colony and they return to the colony for much of the summer.

Last year I wrote about my martin predation and many readers responded with their own stories of disaster and suggestions of solutions to stop this from happening in the future. I had also heard and read similar accounts of predation to martin colonies and it was suggested that once a predator has hit, the colony often doesn’t come back the following year. They simply abandon the colony. As you can image I was holding my breath all winter and spring wondering if my martins would return.

Heck, I even broke down and purchased a new 8 gourd colony kit and installed it late last winter. I really wanted to make my martins feel at home when they arrived in the spring. More importantly I installed raccoon guards on the poles. These are designed to stop a raccoon from climbing the pole and getting to the nestlings. I was delighted when this spring the martins showed up and immediately accepted the new housing options along with the old housing and got down to having babies.

Now I have at least 15 pair of martins and nesting is well underway. I think I may have dodged a natural bullet and I am looking forward to a summer filled with the calls of the Purple Martin. Until next time…

Stan Tekiela is an author / naturalist and wildlife photographer who travels the US to study and photograph wildlife. He can be followed on Facebook and Twitter and at his web page at www.naturesmart.com.