Purple Martin Forum

For several years, I've had 3 martins come in around March 26 on (2 males, 1 female). This year, no show. Instead,a male showed up alone around the 29-30th. To my knowledge, he didn't enter gourd until 4/1. On 4/2, he came in for the night with 3 other birds. One was just visiting and was gone early...

Hi Steve, We were near your place a couple of weeks ago; was going to stop by for my martin fix but ended up hurrying out of there to beat the next weather system. Would have liked to have seen how you have your decoys placed around your colony. Do you have pictures showing the decoys in relation to...

I like to have the Sevin in the pre-nest in case the HOSP are checking out the gourds before
they are occupied with martins.

I have used night guard solar lights for many years. This year I didn't get them up early and I had a GHO. Hadn't had an owl for years while using lights. We used pieces of aluminum to attach 4 lights (4 sides aluminum sheets about 3-4 inches square to hold lights. They set about 2-3 feet above the ...

For many years, I used to go to Griggsville at least once a year to buy housing and parts. This would have been late 80's through early 90's I think. It was past their heyday but the factory and museum was still there and operating. They kept it in fairly good condition then. When the factory moved ...

Hi, Once an owl has eaten martins at your colony, they are very hard to discourage with any scare tactics. You will need physical barriers now. I've blogged about the cages I've had to build here to deter my GHO. If you have any questions, please let me know! Here's the link to the one I built on t...

I had same issue every night with a GHO. When the baby martins where coming out of the nest the owl would sit and wait. Then, land on my houses flushing out my older birds. Needless to say, I totally lost my martin colony. But I got it back! My new houses(T-14) all have deep compartments, owl guard...

Didn't see where you mentioned what type of gourd you were using. I had a GHO frequenting my colony in 2016. Had missing chicks. In 2017 all of my housing had Troyer Tunnels and had no apparent loss due to GHO attack. Took around 5,000 photos with four Trail Cams and never saw the GHO have any succ...

Thanks to all for your comments and suggestions. Going to start by putting up night guards on both racks.
Then will look into the cage to see how that could be done in the middle of nesting season.

Thanks again.

Had a GHO attack this AM between 3:30 and 4:00. I have no rockers on my gourds on Gemini racks so the gourds didn't swing. However, the rack really rocked for a long while. Going to have to check the bolts to make sure they are still tight; only the rack he hit visibly rocked. Also, turned the gourd...

I feed my robins too; they are such nice birds. They prefer worms but will eat crickets too; especially when they have babies to feed. Robins are territorial so normally once the nesting season starts for them you should only have one pair at your site. Sometimes they do get a little aggressive but ...

Another male showed up this AM (Sunday). I had so hoped he would wait a week or so but he showed up here between 5:30 and 6:00 PM. Two hawks showed up about a minute later. Took him down a bunch of crickets and some hand warmers when we went to open the gourds. This guy comes early every year; so fa...

Yes, it helps. Having crows near by is one of several things you can do to discourage hawks hanging around. The best way I've found is to have crow decoys. You can buy plastic or other material that you can stick pegs in the ground to hold or clip to something in the area. They also have "flying" cr...

I'm not finding any scout reports; is the cold weather holding them back? Also not seeing any discussion
of it.

Bump

It's been so long since I've seen the sun, I'm beginning to wonder if it's still out there. So much rain, the lake is up with many docks under water. Hope it stops before it comes on shore. But then the forecast shows rain most of the next week. Is it fun yet? The martins are a week late from last y...

I buy crickets 3 to 6 boxes of 1000 at a time so I bought a small chest freezer for the basement. I freeze the crickets in the boxes they come in. Then I use pint ziplock freezer bags. Then I put how ever many a 2 gallon ziplock will hold back in the freezer. Then if I need more, I have room to plac...

Sounds like you have thought of pretty much everything. Personally, I would never run lines from my house/gourd racks. Where I live, I would be afraid of attracting predators. But you may not have that problem. Is there someway you could add either an outdoor surveillance camera or an outdoor wirele...

I think you will get some with the gourd rack. Do you have plenty of perches? How about a bed and breakfast?
Is there a pond or lake near you? Trees?

I'm not sure how cold it's been or how much (if any) snow you got but one thing that sometimes happens in colder climates is that they will gather at one location so that they can huddle and keep each other warm during cold spells. They do this early in the season when only a few have returned. If t...