As most of you already know, I am a strong advocate of supplemental feeding. We offered crickets and eggs via the fling method in 2004, and experienced success during a very wet, cold and nasty spring.

This year, early spring 2005, we also tossed and experienced success. A new addition to our site this season is a homemade Bed &Breakfast. We initially offered nesting material, but offered crickets and eggs when needed. The Martins successfully started using the B&B this season.

This morning we are experiencing our second day of rain. Yesterday it poured the majority of the day and while temps remained warm, I am confident that a natural food supply was not available. The Martins spent the majority of the day on the top tier of the racks, and did not appear to even attempt to find food. This is a prime example of another condition that calls for offering supplemental feeding. It is not only during the coldest times that a natural food supply is not available. Heavy rain and windy conditions also contribute to the lack of or a diminished natural food supply.

We have many hatchlings and young, as well as many more eggs almost ready to hatch. This morning I scrambled a dozen eggs and placed them in three of the four compartments on the B&B. Immediately, the adults began not only helping themselves, but bringing the scrambled eggs to the young. This was the first time we offered feeding when nestlings were present at our colony site.

I know it is thought that most Martins can go approximately 3 days without a natural food supply, but I am sure that time frame is greatly reduced for the young, and newly hatched.

I would like to encourage everyone to at least think about offering supplemental feeding. While it is not often as necessary in the southern states as it is in the north, it is sometimes a helpful tool, as I witnessed this morning. It was very gratifying to see the young mouths begging at the entrances being filled with readily available food. It is also very comforting to know that our Martins can and will accept supplemental feeding when necessary.

Paul and I will do everything that we can to make sure each and every bird at our site remains as healthy as possible. There are many things we cannot control such as subbie attacks, failed nests or aerial predators, but the one thing we absolutely can do is to provide supplemental feeding when we think it might be helpful.

I only wish more landlords in the northern states would do the same. The Martin populations are being hurt by the series of cold, wet springs and I believe more northern Martins could have been saved had feeding been offered.

The skies are now clearing and a light mist is falling. The Bluebirds and Mockingbirds can use the remainder of the eggs when the Martins decide bugs are again available. At least they got off to a good start early this morning.

The late Ed Donath, of Arlington Heights, IL, was the trailblazer when it comes to supplemental feeding. Ed's colony suffered greatly in 1992 due to very bad weather. Ed started and offered supplemental feeding, plus encouraged others to do so. Unfortunately, this idea was born prior to the age of Internet communication. Fortunately it is now being employed and discussed by many.

Ed fed his Martins scrambled eggs, oyster shells, and cuttlebone from his Orange Star Platform Feeder. Ed had always hoped that his concept of offering supplemental feeding from an orange feeder would catch on so Martins would learn to associate the color orange with food.

If you even think you might try your hand at supplemental feeding, now is the time to get prepared. Read about experiences of others, develop some techniques, and you can even practice using Cheerios or other cereal that will wash away or be eaten by other birds or critters. Alert your neighbors about possible strange behavior and then go outside and fling some cereal......... smile.

Crickets can be easily frozen and stored. I keep some on hand for Bluebirds and Martins. They are easily stored, thawed and offered in the B&B or flung using a long handled plastic spoon(Dairy Queen's Blizzard Spoons work best). Many landlords in our area order their crickets from Hurst-Young Cricket Wholesaler Here is a link to their website:

Their phone number is 1-800-669-7304. If you order before noon on Wednesday, they will ship that week, and you will have them on Friday. If order after noon Wednesday, they will not ship until Monday. Due to large increases in shipping rates, Hurst-Young is no longer able to offer free shipping. However, the cricket prices have dropped to $10.50 per thousand (any size).

Get ready............the Martins are coming! Please think about providing supplemental feeding........it is an excellent tool and can possibly save many of our earliest arrivals.

Perhaps the orange star will never be used exclusively, but certainly Ed's concept of supplemental feeding is catching on, and growing. Many thanks go to Ed for making strides in this area and sharing his findings with so many others.

Here are some photos, links, and information that might help others build an inexpensive supplemental feeding/nest material platform. We used many items we had hanging around in the garage, and I am sure you can improvise as needed. This is just a general concept.......that was inexpensive and easy.

I would like to encourage every landlord to offer supplemental feeding. The Martins do not initially go to this platform, but they can be conditioned to accept food as well as nesting material when offered.

Please know, this information shared is only my opinion. Others have tried and successfully offered supplemental feeding to their Martins, and if you find a way that works for you, stick with it. Many people on the various forums have contributed information and ideas. Something offered might work for you.

Our supplemental feeding/nest material platform is located approximately 50' from our closest rack. The reasons for this placement are to help reduce the possibility of forced copulation while females are gathering nesting material or food, keeping a hawk away from the actual rack or colony site if an attack takes place while Martins are busy feeding or collecting nesting material, and it can be replenished without lowering and raising housing when Martins might be already stressed.

We used one length of an old telescoping pole on which to mount our system. There is no need to mount your platform high, so any length of pole or pipe that will accommodate the universal mount will work. Ours is a mounted a little less than 5' from the ground. This allows me to easily fill and replace the food offerings and nesting material as well as use it to scoop eggs or crickets for flinging.

Gladware containers are not UV protected and by the end of the season the stationary mounted ones are quite brittle. They need to be replaced each year. You might want to consider using something that would last longer, but this doesn't bother us, as we paint and clean the platform each year and need to remove the containers even if they hold up.

The photos are self-explanatory. However, I would like to explain about the double Gladware containers. Four containers are mounted to the platform, and raised, allowing for drainage, using plastic tubing to support. Drainage holes are drilled into the bottom. These are stationary. A second set of containers are used as removable containers so I can easily replace and clean. The second set also has drainage holes drilled in the bottom. These act as double colanders and allow me to keep them clean, and quickly replace.

The following script were taken from Creative Universe's Website describing their Bed and Breakfast. You can contact Robert and Diane Oberlander at their email cuent@cuent.com or by phone at 1-814-833-7896

Offering an elevated platform to your martins is a fun way to make your Purple Martin encounters even more enjoyable. This 12 foot tall schedule 40 aluminum pole features an aluminum hub that glides over the pole, due in part to the nylon glide buttons and pulley system. Four aluminum 9x9 pre-assembled trays can be filled with crickets, mealworms, pine needles, and mud. Trays lift off of the hub for easy access. Top perch rods, rope winder, aluminum ground stake and PVC ground socket complete this unit. Very easy, minor assembly required.

Here is a new egg feeding idea some friends of mine chanced upon that really works (at least it did for them last year). They have a platform feeder, very similar to the Bed and Breakfasts that many of us use. They had heard martins eat eggs, and being basically naive, simply boiled eggs until they were firm, and with a fork, mashed them, shell and all, into small pieces and put them into the feeder. You might remember that egg shells stick to hardboiled eggs well if you do this, and you must "peel" the shell off before you eat the egg.

What they found was the neighbor's martins were constantly coming over, and eating small chunks of eggshell, which had the small pieces of egg on the shell. Within a day or two they were eating the small chunks of egg WITHOUT the shell as well. They often flew in, picked up an egg piece with or without a shell, and flew back to feed the babies 1/2 or so mile away. And this was in fair summer weather, when lots of bugs were about. They told me the martins ate a total of 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs a week with this method (using a fork to smash the egg, shell and all, into small pieces). They would replace any egg after a day or two so they wouldn't get stale in the feeder, which had water drainage holes.

2. the method of hard boiling eggs, smushing them with a fork into small pieces while leaving the shell attached, couldn't be any easier. I suspect the martins first wanted the egg shells, then quickly found the egg pieces were pretty tasty as well. Now if there is bad spring weather this year up here in Canada, I think the neighbor's martins would be conditioned to eat hard boiled egg pieces, and hopefully my friends get a few martin pairs of their own to nest this spring as well. I'm going to try this method this summer at my colony(s), and see if I can duplicate their results.