Counting Peeps

Eggs that have been laid at my purple martin colony are hatching and things so far are looking pretty good.  Sometimes newborn martin get are hard to count so rather than disturbing them too much by feeling around to count them I just whistle softly and heads pop up.

This is probably due to some sort of chatter the adults emit when they arrive with food.  I found a clutch that was a renest attempt meaning that the first set of eggs laid were apparently infertile and kicked out of the nest (which I found on the ground) and then a new clutch laid.

The new clutch contained seven eggs, but I know already that one of them will not be hatching because something "pipped" a small hole in it.  Once this happens bacteria can enter the egg causing it to rot.  I won't be surprised to find this one on the ground.

Infertile Purple Martin Eggs

There are times when purple martins lay infertile eggs and some how the female knows which one out of the clutch is infertile and will push it out of the nest. Some believe that they can somehow "feel" which ones are infertile. Years back a friend had built for me a wooden T-14 house which had removable trays allowing for an easier nest check. I had found that one egg out of a clutch of four had been rolled out of the nest to the front of the tray, so I decided to test this theory. I took the egg and made a slight mark on it with a pencil and placed it back into the clutch. Five days later when I performed another nest check I once again found an egg that had been rolled out of the nest- in fact it was the egg that I had marked. So whether it is by feel or some other means they do know if the egg is infertile. The one in the photo is one such egg that I found today while checking my gourds. BTW, the egg count for today was 62!