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Posted by Bryant Roberts on 17:12:08 06/11/07
In Reply to: Fall Migration posted by Brennan Mulrooney
Your Purple Martins are right on schedule for early departures. The numbers at the Martin roost in Davie continue to grow, on my first visit to the roost this year on May 27 there were only about 2,000 birds but by June 3, there were about 10,000 birds, and yesterday evening the numbers were noticeably greater. This roost is very easy to observe and is located in the trees in front of the Race Trac gas station on the west side of Davie Road (SW 64th Ave.) about a quarter mile south of I-595 in Broward County.
The Purple Martins begin congregating at outlying sites near lakes or wetland areas late in the afternoon then converge around the main roost about a quarter hour before sunset. By sunset yesterday (8:12 PM) the sky around the roost was full of birds and they began landing in the trees and power lines at the roosting site. Early on, any disturbance would flush birds by the hundreds which joined the circling throng but as it got darker, the swarms of Martins that flushed circled quickly back to the trees. Twenty minutes after sunset, only a few stragglers were coming in and most of the birds had settled in for the evening but were still making quite a racket.
You shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the possibility of the Barn Swallow being a breeding bird. According to "Florida Bird Life" there are breeding records from Flamingo and Islamorada.
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