Purple Martin Forum

Are you sure it is an owl? feathers under the house sound more like a raccoon, do you have a good gaurd on your pole ?good luck.
jim

hi billie, we had an asy pair show up june 6 last year and they ended up nesting and raised 2 young. they have not returned this year, we have had 2 sy males here much of the time, but they have not been able to find mates. that being said, i have not given up for this year, most colonies seem to be...

hosp will also use feathers in their nest, their babies will look blueish before they have feathers. Once your positive it's sparrows you should dispose of the whole family

None of this is making much sense, if it were a weasel they would tend to kill everything in the house, rats are not carnivorous unless they are starving, you said there are still martins in the house, they would tend to abandon the site if it were predators. Post pictures of your site if you can, k...

I would get a motion camera installed if you can, a weasel sounds like a possiblity but until you get some kind of visual evidence it's hard to say,hang in there and don't give up!!

chicadees should not be a problem for martins, they are very small and are not aggressive. I would leave the martin house up , they may get along just fine. As far as grackles, I have only seen them nest in evergreen trees, it sounds like a starling problem, good luck.

Here in wi. we have about 40 pair of barnswallows every year, but we also have 300 head of cattle, barnies are great for fly control, ours won't be here for another week or two. So the secret is if you want barnswallows, get some livestock :wink: :wink: ours nest on the trusses in the barns, which w...

I would say it's a raccoon if it chewed away some of the wood, they are very powerful, much more than any owl.

Yes early april would be about right, although if you havn't had martins in the past it will probably be later, what part of wi. are you from? Last year we had an asy pair show up june 5th and begin nesting. Good luck in the coming season, we are near oshkosh 8 below zero tonight, stay warm!! Jim

According to what i've read and seen on the migration maps tree swallows don't nest in the southern states,is this accurate?

I would say you can put it away Billie, my son did see a small flock of martins fly over 2 days ago, but they were heading south, our birds have not been around for 2 weeks now. I think fall migration is well under way, good luck next year!!

For us the barnswallows do a great job of sounding the alarm if a hawk is near, probably because we have 30 pair or more and they are the first to spot the hawk and start dive bombing it!!

Our 2 young martins both flew out this morning and sucsessfully landed in the cottonwood trees near our house. We had 4 hatch but lost 2 in the hot weather in july, the eggs hatched on july 4th. These were the first martins to nest here since the mid 90s. We also had a sy male here most days for the...

Billie, you can get oyster shells at fleet farm, probably farm and fleet in your area, but they sell them in 50 # bags for 10.00. However, we put out shells for our one pair but they never looked at them, for that matter, we've not seen them touch the egg shells either,not sure why.

no, we don;t have black flies here that i'm aware of, my guess is stil it was heat related.

They had been dead for several days, they were already decaying.

Our late asy pair hatched four eggs and all seemed to be going well. I did a nest change this afternoon and found 2 of the young had died. There were no blowflies or parasites of any kind, my only guess is they were overcome by the heat? we had several days in the 90s with high humidity. They hatche...

they are purple martins, probably done nesting from a nearby colony checking out your site.
jim

Our late asy pair laid 4 eggs, all 4 hatched yesterday and are doing fine!! This pair showed up june 5th, 30 days later they have young!!! We also have a sy male still visiting every day, hopefully he will return next year and find a mate, good luck to all who still have martins to fledge, it's been...

Hi Billie, so sorry to hear of your loss, wish we were a little closer to monroe so we could give you a hand, we're near oshkosh. I would keep playing the dawnsong if you want, it may make your visitor feel more at home. Do you know if it is a sy male, he may attatch to your site and return next yea...