Will do.

Sounds to me like you’re gonna be feeding a Martin all winter. I’ve never seen a Martin around here after the first few days of August.

We occasionally get a frost before the end of October. We’ll typically get a good “killing” frost by mid November

That seems very odd to me. That very well may be the only Purple Martin still in Virginia.

Yes they have done well, especially considering we are in a bad drought. I won’t harvest any until after frost but I should have seed available.

I know of one long time colony that barn owls almost wiped out. We have 4 barns and I have no intentions of ever trying to attract an owl of any kind to nest here.

Emil I’m very glad the sideboards work. That is a very easy modification to make even for those with less tinkering abilities. I do have a question to ask because I don’t understand the reasoning behind it.... If the sideboards are placed so there’s a 2” gap between them then I don’t understand what...

Threads like this sorta shoot holes in people’s ideas that large colonies “hog” Martins. Any Martin colony, regardless of its size, helps disperse Martins. Large colonies may suck up a lot of unbounded ASY Martins but they sure put out lots of HY’s to disperse to colonies the following year. .. . ....

Threads like this sorta shoot holes in people’s ideas that large colonies “hog” Martins. Any Martin colony, regardless of its size, helps disperse Martins. Large colonies may suck up a lot of unbounded ASY Martins but they sure put out lots of HY’s to disperse to colonies the following year.

Farmerharv does it take a few days for the sparrows to find the trap and get used to it before they start working on it? Because I have had mine out for three days and there is none coming close to it, they are flying around every where just not curios enough to check it out! There will be favorite...

WTG Harv. In my experience, white millet is the best bait to use. I bought some really cheap bird seed at Walmart that was mostly blended brown millets and it wasn’t nearly as good as white millet. From now until fall is the absolute best time of year to trap.

Thanks for the info Steve! I've got 6 months to get 2 new racks built. That sounds like a long time, but I'm a good procrastinator.

There is no right or wrong answer. Its up to everyone to decide for themselves. I like the noise and chaos of a large colony. I’ve offered 102 gourds for 13-14 years. Next year I will offer 150. If I was starting from scratch I’d love for my neighbor, or someone close to have 100+ pairs of Martins. ...

Very, very, very few of them do. That not opinion, that’s based of banding studies

ya all

Dave

Dave, while I appreciate your attempt to sound southern that was a pretty bad attempt. LOL

Y'all
Yall
You all

Just for future reference.

June in Louisiana is way too late to attract Martins. Try again next year starting in February. Kill all the Hoise Sparrows that you can between now and then. If the hose has 24 6X6 compartments, it would be best to enlarge them. Also, large gourds are more attractive to them than houses. You need y...

Buy a permit, buy a gun and shoot the dang thing.

As a last resort, Martins and HOSP CAN cohabitate though it's far from ideal. There is no way I would allow a HOSP to keep me from opening up my Martin housing. You could have Martins and HOSP until you eliminate the HOSP.

I just checked the nests. One was completely destroyed. One was intact with two unhatched eggs. The storm blew rain sideways for about an hour. We received 3 inches. However, I found a snake skin about 20 feet from the nest. If it was a snake it will be the first one. I have had Martins for about 1...

Yes he definitely got more intent on entering. There was one specific time where he could have entered, he just didn't know it yet. He had both "shoulders" in, up to his largest point. All he had left to do at that point was twist his keel bone left or right and he would have been in. If he lives lo...

I don't want people to think that I'm hating on intensive management. If I have come across that way, that was not my intention. Intensive management is not for me. If it's your thing, great for you, but don't look down on me for not doing it. I've had thousands and thousands of Martins fledge from ...