2010 Colony

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0418dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FF0000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Entrances By Sandy</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|</B><B>    </B><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FF0000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B> </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Entrances By Sandy"><U><B>home</B></U></A></FONT></div> <div> <A HREF="id219.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Colony 2004"><U>My Colony 2004</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id220.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Colony 2005"><U>My Colony 2005</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id243.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Colony 2006"><U>My Colony 2006</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id249.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2007 Colony"><U>2007 Colony</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id258.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2008 Colony"><U>2008 Colony</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id264.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2009 Colony"><U>2009 Colony</U></A>   |   <B>2010 Colony</B>   |   <A HREF="id268.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Colony 2011"><U>My Colony 2011</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id266.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Satellite Colony at Work"><U>Satellite Colony at Work</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id269.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Work Colony 2011"><U>Work Colony 2011</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0418dfc3.jpg"> <div> <I><B>2010 Colony</B></I></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="107ceee80.jpg" border=0 width="750" height="1000" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <div> <B>This is my 2010 colony.  One thing you may notice is that I now only have one brown gourd.  This brown gourd is in honor of my now deceased father who gave me the idea to use brown gourds to get my colony started.  Fortunately, he did live long enough to see me get the colony started and up to 9 pair.  Unfortunately, he did not get to see the next year's growth to nine pair and the steady growth I have over the past few years.  Last year, I had 83 pair that nested and fledged young.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>I have made some changes to my colony during the off season.  While I prefer natural gourds because they each have their own "personality" and no two look alike, I am just tired of the maintenance required on them.  So, I have taken down 36 naturals and replaced them with 12 Supergourds, 12 Troyers Horizontals, and 12 of the new Troyer Vertical Gourd.  I now only have 3 natural gourds left of the 100 gourds I have up.  The break down of my gourds is 26 Supergourds, 35 Naturelines, 21 Troyer Horizontals, 3 Excluder gourds, 12 Troyer Vertical gourds, and 3 naturals.  I am using almost 100% Excluder II entrances.  The only non Excluder II entrances I have are a crescent and a WDC on Excluder gourds and a WDC on a Supergourd that Brad Biddle made for me.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>On 3/13/10 at 1300 hours an ASY female showed up and started going in and out of my gourds.  Within 1/2 hour, there were 2 ASY males that had joined her.  They were a little late this year because of the cold winter that was experienced here in the South.  As of 3/20/10, I have 12 birds here and gaining some almost everyday.  Things will be very busy here shortly.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>By April 11, there are well over 75 birds here and nest building is starting to get serious.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>As of 5/1/10, there were 81 nests.  30 nests had 111 eggs.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>As of 5/15/10, 82 known nesting pair with 314 eggs and 74 hatchlings.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>As of 5/29/10, there were 89 known pair.  There were 296 hatchlings and 108 eggs still to be hatched, for a total of 404 total of hatchlings and eggs.  Another 10 eggs were disposed of.  This is the last nest check for the year because of the age of my oldest nestlings.  Now, it just remains to be seem in is left in the nesting cavities at the end of the season.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="107eee330.jpg" border=0 width="750" height="563" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="1080ee330.jpg" border=0 width="750" height="563" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="1082ee330.jpg" border=0 width="750" height="563" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B><IMG SRC="1084ee330.jpg" border=0 width="750" height="563" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id264.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2009 Colony"><U><I><B>Previous Page</B></I></U></A><I><B>              </B></I><A HREF="mailto:sbunn1@suddenlink.net" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:sbunn1@suddenlink.net"><U><I><B>Contact Me</B></I></U></A><I><B>              </B></I><A HREF="id266.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Satellite Colony at Work"><U><I><B>Next Page</B></I></U></A></div> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>