Good for you. I like your clothes pins. I saw one hanging around my gourds about 2 wks ago. I thought he or she was a juvenile.
I didn't know they turned that way in the winter.

Where I am from in North Carolina. Open farm fields with house as back drop and home grown gourds painted white seems to be the ticket.

Video Of Savage Battle Between Northern Flicker And European Starling Inside A Bird House Northern flickers suffer heavy nest competition from European starlings. Though a flicker is larger, heavier and has a more powerful beak, the flicker usually loses in battles, particularly INSIDE the cavity w...

I have set up nesting boxes for Northern Saw Whet owls, Eastern Screech owls and American Kestrels. As far as I am aware, none of these predators are a threat to the martins. Has anyone out there had history with these three species? If so good or bad? I have a couple of eastern screech nest every ...

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

Yep, that sounds exactly what it is. Ask me I know from 20 yrs ago being a first time land lord without predator protection. Never again.

Is it any wonder I get a stiff neck by looking at these Martins fly!

Hats off 2 both of you Steve! Love hearing what you and your friend accomplished this year. God Bless.

LEXCEL is what you need. Caulking.

I get rid of them every time I encounter one. Matter of fact I just killed 1 this morning up my magnolia tree. No sense in releasing them they will just go about consuming more song birds not rats.

Let me add this question... So at my place thee are maybe 250 birds in the civil twilight evening swirling around. I think all have fledged and maybe the older pro's are going for clutch #2. Where do the first round of fledglings hang out at night? Do they stay in the gourd they were raised in, hop...

It may be too early for this in your area but it could possibly be a family group of Martins. I see them very often in June. A pair of Martins with their fledglings our flying around. Adults will often take fledglings to other colony sites in the area. I guess they’re showing them around the neighb...

You might want to set up a yard feeder for songbirds. Let them be the cannon fodder. Unless you have a lot of sparrows. A red shoulder hawk or red tail will not bother martins. I have seen martins beat up on them. Cooper hawks and sharp shinned will usually take the easiest prey sick or dumb like do...

I doubt it.

No, they will move on. I see no reason not to let them chill for awhile.

I always leave them up thru last of August. You might have some flying thru going back to S.A. and will see your set up and maybe check em out for next year first thing.

Your situation sounds just like mine did 2 yrs ago. I put up gourds in late may and had several martins appear. Never did nest. Fellow across the field has tons of martins. Last year I had 2 sub adults come in late may. Stayed and raised 2 babies. This year the male adult came in early March and the...

Do not let any one bully you. You have done nothing wrong. You really must have a terrible next door neighbor to cause all this pain for you. You have done the right thing. Hang tough. Never let another human dictate how you choose to engage your time with such a loving bird.

I have one dedicated pr. of mature martins that are always being harassed by a sub adult male. When my male sees him he shoos the female inside and stands guard. The sub adult always tries to bully his way in and the male knocks him off the hole. He comes every few days. He knows the female has babi...

Just leave it.

Baseball sized hail sounds scary. Glad it wasn't worse than it was. I think it was 11 or 12 years ago, we got 3 hail storms in one week. None of them had over ping pong sized hail though. I still lost some porches and lids on my gourds. I wished I had taken some pics or put one in the freezer but I...