Purple Martin Monitoring
AAS monitors 40 nest gourds, 24 at Lake Elberta Park and 16 at Lake Henrietta Park. Check this page every Thursday for updates about the status of the eggs and Purple Martin young.
Purple Martin volunteer monitors, Talia Smith-Sickler and Kathleen Carr
We love that the first six eggs of the season hatched on Earth Day, April 22, and we’re pleased to announce that they all grew up as nestlings and fledged by May 20. Click to view the Earth Day Hatchling photos.
We made two nest checks this past week, June 20 & June 23. Sadly, on June 20 we found one dead nestling in H-05 at the Lake Henrietta Park array. We removed the dead bird and smelly nest material, cleaned the gourd, and added pine straw and leaves from another nest, then returned the 3 survivors. We’re happy to report that they were doing well as of June 23 and we expect them to fledge on schedule—which is any day now.
As of June 23, for both parks, 9 young are still in 4 nests and 130 have fledged—left the nest gourd. At this time, we expect a total of 135 to have fledged by the 2nd week of July. Only 5 more nestlings to go!
June 23, 2026
Lake Elberta Park: 3 young in 2 Active Nests (of 24)
Young Hatched: 87
Young Fledged: 72
Young likely lost to predators: 5 (Gourds 17 & 19)
June 23, 2026
Lake Henrietta Park: 6 young in 2 active nests (of 16)
Young Hatched: 74
Young fledged: 58
1 young found dead in nest (June 20)
Images from both Lake Henrietta (LHP) and Lake Elberta (LEP) parks. Total of 9 young. And get a load of the attitude from the last nestling in Gourd G18, confronting the endoscope camera that we use to inspect the nests. He’s ready to take on the world!
Images from both Lake Henrietta (LHP) and Lake Elberta (LEP) parks. Total of 13 young
Lake Elberta Park: Last two gourds with young. The G4 young are expected to fledge June 28 or later. The G18 young are expected to fledge June 24 or later.
Lake Henrietta Park: Last two gourds with young. The H-03 young are expected to fledge July 3 or later. The H-05 young are expected to fledge June 23 or later.
Lake Henrietta Park: Photos of the 10 young Purple Martins remaining in the last three nest gourds, ranging in ages from 6 days to 25 days old.
Lake Elberta Park: Photos of the 11 young Purple Martins remaining in the last four nest gourds, ranging in age from 9 days to 14 days old.
Lake Henrietta Park: Photos of the 16 young Purple Martins remaining in the last four nest gourds, ranging in age from 3 days to 26 days old. We weren’t sure if the eggs laid in gourds H-03 and H-05 were going to hatch, but some of the eggs did, and we expect those will be our last to fledge, sometime around the end of June.
June 3 Photos
One of two surprises the nest monitors encountered at Lake Elberta Park. Thought to have been abandoned after eggs laid in April never hatched, Gourd 4 suddenly had four 1-day-old hatchlings! A female took over the nest sometime in May and laid a new clutch of eggs.
The second surprise at Lake Elberta Park was finding a clutch of four 5-day-old young in a nest that had been abandoned after a clutch of eggs was laid in April, but never hatched..
Lake Henrietta Park. Five young in Gourd 9, 26 days old and ready to fledge!
May 27 Photos
Lake Henrietta Park: SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE! There were originally six eggs in what we had identified as an abandoned nest in gourd H-03. This week’s check revealed a total of NINE eggs! Even though it’s getting late in the breeding season, apparently a female decided to lay some eggs here over the past week. Only time will tell if her effort will result in nestlings. We don’t expect the original 6 eggs to hatch.
Lake Elberta Park: Happy Hatch Day! This newly hatched chick is the first of five eggs to hatch from Gourd 19. This was on the array arm that fell off and had to be reinstalled. Although eggs were lost from that unfortunate event, it’s gratifying to see the birds re-nest and start a new brood.
Lake Henrietta Park, five 10-day-old young (count the yellow beaks) in gourd H-04
Lake Henrietta Park: These two young in gourd H-06 are ready to fledge! Two of their nest-mates have fledged already.
Earth Day Hatchlings
Lake Elberta Park, Gourd 2, May 13, 2026: The three remaining young in this photo are ready to fledge.
Lake Elberta Park, Gourd 2, May 6, 2026. The six young are 15 days old, and the first to hatch in 2026,
Lake Elberta Park, Gourd 2, April 22, 2026. The first hatchlings of of the 2026 nesting season—Earth Day!
More photos of young Purple Martins and Eggs
