Purple Martin Forum

That cold snap we had this spring was brutal, we lost 3 scouts that I know of. We had a couple compartments by SY birds with 5 eggs in each that never hatched so I think you make a good point saying teenagers are lousy parents.

Necole, If you are certain you don't have the parents around maybe you can locate another colony and see if the still have any young that age and are willing to take it. The second option is to find a wildlife rehabilitator in your region. If your not sure ask your local veterinarian or bird special...

Thanks for the advice. I didn't have any jumpers today so I believe they are feeding it. I think I'll start marking jumpers with a spot of different color paint on one of its legs so I can tell if its the same one jumping.

I found another jumper, I'm guessing its around 22 days old and isn't quite able to fly yet sitting on the winch that raises and lowers the gourd rack today. The problem I had was I might have put it in the wrong gourd! Its chaos time around here with 123 hatchlings and lots of visitors around coaxi...

Mike, Congrats on your colony and retirement. Your location is perfect! I started my colony 3 years ago and from what I see my location looks similar to yours. Being my third year I offer 28 compartments 22 are house and 6 are gourds. Things I have to do to keep my colony successful this year are ha...

I just had my first jumper a few minutes ago, most likely due to this relentless hot spell. I noticed around 8 to 10 birds on the ground for some reason, as soon as I walked over all but one took off. This season I have a large age difference with my hatchlings and with 123 of them I'm glad I did a ...

G Fox, As Whippy said It can't hurt to have a talk with your neighbor. As a fellow farmer I know farmers have a terrible problem with flies on livestock, and as far as I know Martins can devastate a fly population, I don't have a problem with flies at all anymore. Maybe if you are or know someone ha...

Great topic and important for some landlords. I've been using older pellet guns such as the Sheridan pump blue streak .20 cal open sights that I haven no idea how old it is. It's lite and shoots a 14.3 gr pellet at around 650fps, its a great gun! I also use a 1986 made in England, scoped Beeman Kodi...

Welcome Jeff, I also have a colony on the south shore of Lake Ontario just east of you between Rochester and Sodus Point NY. I've always wondered how many people along the lake have Martins because I know its a pretty good attractant. I helped my father with his martin colony way back in the 60's bu...

I like it. Now all you need is some way to hold the pellet gun still so we don't hit the martin house. I use an old 1970 surveyors tripod that I refurbished.

Buckdog, I did the same thing this year. I had the original house up from last year that had two nesting pair and that fledged 10 chicks. This year 15 foot from that house I put up a T14 prior to when the scouts arrived the second week of April. The Adults from the previous year went to the original...

One other thing I forgot to mention was that I was assuming that you were still going to put up The S&K barn and place the new house a few yards from it,which would be your best option. If it is being replaced, what I think you are saying it still should be OK but a little less certain. I would plac...

Now that you have a chance of having your adult birds returning early, a few weeks before the sub adults arrive, scouting for the best compartments at your colony. I would have the house on the pole but lowered and even block off the compartments with some pieces of pool noodle until the second week...

Kegger, It should be fine, I would add 4ft fiberglass perches along the bottom of the roof line or even through the roof or when you get your dozens of birds they would have a place to perch. I got mine at tractor supply. If you really want to add that little bonus to attract them you could have fou...

One other thing I forgot to mention is the gourdes are troyer horizontals with tunnels and SREH's. If the martins would stay in the houses or gourdes they would be safe but I heard that the GHO beats its wings on the sides and flushes the martins out.

It's a little different than the garage door sensor that has a signal between two sensors that has to be broken. The driveway sensor only has one module that reflects The signal back but but you could be correct that the owl might have to be straight in front of it. I was thinking that I could aim i...

OK, Thanks for the information. Now that I'm retired I'll be able to monitor my colony more closely. If it happens again this year I'll post a picture of the feathers, maybe someone could tell me what bird they belong to.

Late Summer while mowing the lawn I spotted an OWL feather around 20 or 30 foot from my Martin houses and some long narrow black feathers scattered, not next to the martin houses but next to my house under some large pine trees a couple hundred feet from the bird houses. I believe it happened later ...

Kegger: When you were fishing in Pultneyville you were only 4 miles from my house. I should have had my purple martin sanctuary sign out to draw you in to check out our colony but it would have been off season. I'm trying to make the area were my houses are look like a little park with some nice lan...

Hi Mike, The solar cooling and heating system I use for the houses isn't something you can buy, I tinkered around and made it. I have it running everyday checking the longevity of the boxer fan, going on 3 years now. The parts needed are 2 peltier modules that are available at most electronic supply...