Purple Martin Forum

It is really hard to believe when I put my houses up this spring about 2 weeks before the martins were supposed to arrive I never noticed much interest from house sparrows the odd one would poke his nose around the house, but since the martins have arrived it is a constant harrsement from the sparro...

Dean
That sounds good I will search for it and hope I can irradiate them rat birds! Do you catch sparrows in it also?

Hi Dean Just wondering if you have plans on paper for this starling trap? I was never bothered with starlings until this year, 3 days ago I had 3 PM arrive and the starlings just came from out of no where I ended up shooting one but they come right at sunrise and try to make the martins think that t...

Caroline I’ve been watching the scout map and I see you have 2 reports in North Dakota, I’m from southern Saskatchewan and in the last 2 years mine have arrived on April 22 but the weather here is just fridged for this time of the year, snowed last night again -10 for the temp, winter just doesn’t w...

Pmdavid
Good job on the tactical force on that starling!! Those rat birds should be all wiped off the the earth!!

My thoughts are this! Nature can take its course and you might have more sparrows then purple martins Over time! If you allow them! Sparrows are a invasive species that invade a lot of other birds that are protected and do not deserve to be here. My neighbor has a purple Martin house and he never ma...

Archer When the martins arrived back here in the last 2 years that I have been a landlord the weather has been fairly warm and they were able to look after themselves, but every year is different from the next and maybe this year might be one that I will have to feed them. We live in a farming commu...

Hi Archer Nice to hear from you again! You can tell it’s getting to be Martin season again here we are discussing when there going to arrive! I believe I told you last year that I thought my colony got hit by a 747 jet but they came back right after that, but I sure hope it warms up real fast becaus...

Nice pictures Kyler I’m really getting excited about mine returning, but it will be at least 2 weeks also I’m hoping mine come this year before archers do,his came before mine did last year! It is very cold here for this time of year.

I will catch one in one compartment and then it will take 2 to 3 weeks and then another sparrow will come around and go to a different compartment so I will have to move my insert trap to that compartment to catch him, very slow and there are lots of sparrows around it’s like they have 6 senses, oh ...

Flyin-lowe When you are trapping hosp are you using a trap inside of your t14 or a repeating trap? Because I am experiencing that when I put a trap inside a compartment in my t14 I catch the male sparrow and then things go dead for a long time before another sparrow comes along, they are smart and a...

My thoughts on that are if you have enough rooms available to accommodate them they will stay! As long as you don’t have other birds competing for rooms you should be ok.

Jhcox I know exactly how you feel waiting patiently for them to return! Last year was my second year and I kept thinking there not coming and then one day it was cold and snowing and I looked up at the Martin house and there was one with his head sticking out of the hole, then 2 days later another o...

Practise on how to down load pictures!

Took this one a couple years ago,it’s an eclipse of the moon, I took it with my iPhone 7 and a spotting scope!

I use a product called phone scope, it is similar to the one you are talking about only it will mount on a spotting scope or a pair of binoculars works fantastic.

Gun The compartments are accessible the roof comes off as one level and then the second level comes off of the bottom level, the levels are screwed together on each side of each level. I built this not knowing any thing about purple martins after I learned a lot about martins from the knowledgeable ...

Steve
Over the past 10 years that you have been a landlord, what dates do your martins usually return?

That’s very interesting archer, even though she did not show up last year it would be something if she showed up this year, I’m not sure what the life span is of a purple Martin, she would be 5 years old this year.

Whippy
Congrats on the start of your season! It must feel good! I will have to wait at least another month and a half to start watching the sky’s for flying martins.