Purple Martin Forum

Anxiously awaiting my first martin here in SE Florida. I have housing at three locations - Cypress Bend condominiums in Pompano Beach, Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek and Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, FL. I think my earliest martin in about 11 years was January 21st or so. Usually I do not ...

I have 127 gourds at three active colonies. Last season I noticed that some of the birds seemed to prefer the porchless, on the OUTSIDE, Excluder gourds with the modified excluder entrance. They chose them over the porched ones of the same kind. I left the porches inside to help shield the nest from...

I have an idea that the martins will abandon the gourd for this year but who knows. I could be wrong. Yes. The snake netting should be above a good cylindrical predator guard and act as a backup. Having said that though I AM SORRY this happened and HOPE the martins renest. I had a small ratsnake li...

I may try the Walls on my crescent Trendsetter entrance as I lost an ASY male this spring to wing entrapment. That was my first loss in many years. I guess I can just Waterproof Gorilla Glue the walls on each side of the entrance.

I really appreciate you sharing your findings with us Emil.

Carl

Yes I agree with Mr Emil, any SREH style entrance hole that’s 1 3/16 inch or 31 mm with the suggested side boards/walls installed will completely stop 99% of all starlings from entering. As long as that starling can’t turn sideways, ( this is what the sides accomplish )he will not and cannot enter....

Ignore that statement on the Wing Guards. I use them all the time and they work. Personally, I used a Waterproof Gorilla Glue and glued them centered over the Conley II with the top of the curve in the guard just under the hole for the loop trap. I did not raise the porches. Even though they tried ...

Another method that works is to use the corrugated, plastic, 1/8 inch ( I think) signboard from a hobby shop. When I did mine the signboard came right up to the bottom of the entrance hole's horizontal entrance and covered the dip. Use a silicon waterproof adhesive and cement the board to the porch....

Ignore that statement on the Wing Guards. I use them all the time and they work. Personally, I used a Waterproof Gorilla Glue and glued them centered over the Conley II with the top of the curve in the guard just under the hole for the loop trap. I did not raise the porches. Even though they tried a...

Gourd Rack 1.jpg This past Winter I added some new gourd racks here in South Florida. Here are two of the three racks I added. All are pretty much full up with nesting pairs now! Ten years ago no martins were sighted in these two locations. So happy! One rack is in Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek,...

I have 7 84" tall shepherd's hooks, with predator guards 4 ft. above the ground, Excluder gourds here beside my lake. This will be the 4th year. Last year 4 of the 7 had active nests and fledged their young successfully. The gourds all face a small lake and all sit in a mowed lawn area just a very ...

My first martins returned this morning to Tradewinds Park in Coconut Creek. This is a 650 acre or so park in urban Broward County, Florida. There were no martins there until I got permission to place a house there 8 years ago. I started off with a four enlarged rooms MSS-8 aluminum house. The first ...

Welcome back, Barb! Good to see you on here again and GOOD LUCK this year with your martins. I have seen pics of your site and it looks good to me. You just need some more aggressive martins!!!

Carl

I, along with the Broward County Park System, have expanded our purple martin setups. Here is the way thing stand now: Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach: 12 Troyer Vertical Gourds (fully occupied last year) 12 Excluder Gourds with Modified Excluder Entrances being added this month. Tradewinds Par...

What modifications do you think you may make, Jim? I know that getting that first nesting pair CAN be a real challenge. When I lived in Delaware I had houses and gourds and for two years could not get a martin to nest. There was an active colony one street over and another one up at the top of my st...

I just found out yesterday that the person who had volunteered to care for the two MSS-8 purple martin houses, that I left in Rehoboth Beach Yacht and Country Club did not live up to his commitment. An elderly couple drove by a few times and they tell me that the wadded up plastic bags were never re...

Today is Day 30, from hatching, and all four of my shepherd's hook hung Excluder gourd young martins fledged. I am ELATED! It was an experiment and it worked. I think the reason it worked was that the shepherd's hook mounted gourds, suspended from 84 inch tall hooks, were RIGHT beside & facing the w...

This is Day 28 after hatching for my four martins in one of my shepherd's hook hung Gourds. They are still looking out of the entrance and the parents are stuffing them from the porch or even from hovering in front of the entrance.

Speedy and I sat on the nearby bench watching the dozens of young martins watching us. All of my martins have fledged here in Pompano Beach, Florida and this morning it appears that all of the adults have disappeared. The young are everywhere and seem to instinctively know just what to do. They were...

This morning Speedy and I walked down to our condo grounds martin housing. Babies are fledging right and left!!!! Grand Central Station. Everyone's so excited including me. A very successful season with all condo grounds housing fully occupied. 20 enlarged Trio condos with Excluder entrances and 2 E...