Baby martins on the ground under their boxes, what do I do?

Question

They are either dying or parents are caring for them. Two are dead and hanging out of their boxes. What could be causing their deaths and why are the babies landing on the ground and not trying to fly? I haven't seen this before. We've had martins for years in the same boxes. I returned one and it ended up dead outside of its nest. It looked like it had been killed.

what is going on here?

Answer 1

Actually crows are low on the problem rap sheet for purple martins. English house sparrows and European Starlings will often kill both babies and adult martins even. Unfortunately you do not have enough information to determine whether these deaths are due to attacks by these non native invasive pest birds (sparrows or starlings) or from a serious parasite infestation (such as mites) or from the babies starving due to the parents being unable to forage enough food (common in droughts)
The only way you can know for sure is by performing regular nest checks as is recommended by the Purple Martin Conservation Association. Check out there website or another site you can try is http://purplemartins-r-us.com/articles.php  Good luck to you.
And PS to the rehabber-crows don't drop nestlings to kill them before they eat them, they are perfectly happy eating them live, they just happen to drop them and then pick them back up.