Hi Ed,

The other day I checked a colony in Snohomish County and found nine
dead adult martins at one site that only has six boxes, only one
box had an active nest, a second year female incubating three eggs
at this late date, I never saw or heard a male bird the entire time
I was there, even though the female exited her nest and alarm
called, a vocalization that in my experience always attracts other
martins. At two other nearby sites I did not see or hear any
martins, can only check those boxes by boat at high tide and I will
be doing that soon , but admit I am not really looking forward to it.

Back in June immediately after the weather broke I found some
reasonably fresh dead martins which are now double bagged in the deep
freeze, preserved them for an ongoing biometrics study, whether or
not and to what extent they can now be used to test for other causes
of death I do not know, but will investigate that option. Based on
a quick examination of the dead birds I think they all starved to
death, underweight, shrunken breast muscles, with a sharply
protruding breast bone.

My data does not go back quite as far as Rich's, but it does include
2002 and also shows no decline that year, in fact it shows a nearly
30% increase in the known population in my north Sound study area
that year. I personally do not recall the weather being nearly as
cold and wet that year as it was this year, at least not here in the
north Sound, but have not looked at any data regarding that.

I recall living in Pennsylvania back in 1972 when the remnants of
Hurricane Agnes moved up the East coast, turned west and stalled
over the middle of the state during the height of the martin breeding
season in June, it turned cold and rained non stop for a week,
killed all adults and young at many colonies.

Has anyone noticed unusually high mortality in any other species here
in this region this year ?

Stan Kostka
lynnandstan at earthlink.net
Arlington



Subject: Cause of local 2008 Purple Martin deaths?
From: "Ed Swan" <edswan AT centurytel.net>
Date: Sat, 9 Aug 2008 07:25:13 -0700
Talking to Rich Siegrist here on Vashon, he found 9 dead adults in
the boxes he
has set up over the last 15 years. Last year there were 71 pairs
here, this
year 14. Checking the Office of the Washington State Climatologist
website,
this spring's temperatures were relatively cold. However, the spring
of 2002
was also equally cool, yet Rich doesn't have the same sort of dip in his
records.
Is more than the weather going on with the martin population or was
there
something particular about this year that made a difference?
Ed Swan