Re: Purple Martin conservation in Milwaukee

Lake Park Birders:

Bill Mueller will receive your replies to this message. He is the
key person in efforts to reverse the decline of Purple Martins in
Milwaukee.

--- Paul Hunter,
http://home.roadrunner.com/~phunter1/lakeparkbirds.html
=====================================================

http://puma-in-wi.blogspot.com/2008/12/beginnings-of-purple-martin-
initiative.html:

A group of southeastern Wisconsin partners (including Tim Vargo of
Urban Ecology, Joe Devereax of Enderis Park Birdwatching Club, Paul
Hunter of Birds of Lake Park, Noel Cutright retired ornithologist,
Bill Holton of Wisconsin Metro Audubon, and others) have formed a
Purple Martin "initiative" here, in Milwaukee County's parks and
other areas, and eventually to expand to other areas of Wisconsin.

We're looking to obtain unused purple martin housing of any type, to
be refurbished if possible, and re-installed on better locations -
both to attempt to establish new colonies, and expand existing ones.

If you have a used apartment-style martin house or gourd system
(either of which is currently in place but not attracting martins),
please join us in this effort to enhance this species' population. We
would appreciate any donation of martin housing in good condition.

If this sounds interesting to you, please contact Bill Mueller at
iltlawas@earthlink.net or 414-698-9108.

=====================================================

On May 11, 2009, at 9:12 PM, William Mueller wrote:

Bill Holton and some of his monitoring partners have trapped
starlings several times at the Grobschmidt Park house. No martins yet.

I have put up the house donated by Karen Johnson, on a rural FDL Co.
site. I will be delivering the gourd and pole set to Scott Diehl at
Wisconsin Humane this week. I gave the house donated by Marvin
Calewart to a farmer who will paint it and put it up on his land, at
the Sheb Co/FDL Co line.

Karen, Betsy, and other have continued to monitor the South Shore
colony, which has approx 7 pairs. A House Sparrow pair attempted to
nest, but it looks like they moved on, or were removed by the owner
of this house.

I traveled to a number of areas in Fond du Lac, Calumet, and
Sheboygan counties last Saturday, where I found colonies on Hwy MM in
Sheb Co (only one pair), another off of Hwy HHH in Calumet Co near
the west end of Charlesburg Swamp (3-4 pairs), a magnificent colony
setup with multiple house near Hilbert (Manitowoc Co), which had many
pairs last year, but no birds yet this year. An Amish farm on Hwy Q
in FDL Co has a few pairs.

If you find others in southeastern WI, we'd like to hear about them.

Bill

William P. Mueller
Conservation Chair - Wisconsin Society for Ornithology (WSO)
Project Coordinator - Milwaukee County Avian Migration Monitoring
Partnership (MCAMMP)
(414) 698-9108
E-mail: iltlawas@earthlink.net
On the web: http://home.earthlink.net/~iltlawas/index.html
Blog: http://bluebirdslaugh.blogspot.com/
Purple Martins in Wisconsin: http://puma-in-wi.blogspot.com/