In continuing to celebrate our 35th Anniversary, the PMCA is excited to share the 2nd installment of the Landlord Spotlight. For this month’s installment, Terry Nitsch shares their landlord tale.
We moved to central Ohio 20 years ago from the city to the country. We have 9 acres and a large back yard. A good friend of mine had Purple Martins and I really enjoyed seeing them at his place so I decided to give it a try. I also put in a 1/2 acre pond and wanted the martin houses close to the water and away from the trees. We put the first house up and ended up with two pair! Second year we had 8 pair so I decided to put up additional housing. Within 4 years we had 4 martin houses installed and the martins started filling them all. The beauty of them is the constant singing and all the bugs they eat. It’s amazing how many bugs show back up after they leave to go south.
Another neat thing we did was attached live video cameras to a couple of the gourds. We watch those on TV through the entire season and they are very entertaining, building the nests and raising the babies. Every fall I take the houses down and power wash them before placing them in the barn for winter. I will start putting houses up the middle of March and they start showing up here in central Ohio a week later. When they are here in the spring and the weather has some bad days I feed them scrambled eggs. I flip the eggs in the air and they love them. It’s funny when they are hungry and I go out the back door, they come and hover right over my head wanting fed. They are very special birdies and we love having them here. Good luck to everyone this season!
Terry Nitsch
Landlord Stats:
- Located in Central Ohio
- Landlord for 20 years
- 62 houses and gourds
- Last year fledged 250 babies
If you are a landlord and want to share your story, please email [email protected].