Purple Martin Forum

I have an ornithologist who is a neighbor who was somewhat doubtful when i told him about the wrens. I told him I would put it on the forum to see if anyone else had observed this behavior. From responses, it clearly does happen. The wrens do not easily scare, as someone mentioned. At one time i had...

Has anyone ever had house wrens throw out martin eggs. I have observed in two different years house wrens throwing eggs out of the nests in my gourds. I had 7 gourds with eggs in them about 3 weeks ago. A wren was observed entering the gourds and I actually observed, this year and a previous year, t...

I live in Winfield. In 2011 I had 24 pairs. 2012 14 pairs. This year 6 pairs. Numerous places around town that have had martins for years, do not have any. I have changed nothing. Don't know what is happening. Probably was a drop in production the last couple of years because of heat, but I have no ...

It is always fun learning what most people already know. Until yesterday I did not know martins switch into a low energy, motionless, "look like they are dead" mode when it is very cold to conserve energy, but they do! I observed it when later in the day yesterday I thought I would check to see if a...

Dave--I used a sprinkler rather than a mister. I don't know if the finer spray of a mister would have a different impact on the humidity in the gourd, and thus the heat index, or not. It could be a little higher, but maybe not. Good luck trying to keep the martins alive.

Comparing dry martin super gourds and sprinkling the gourds I used 2 acurite indoor humidity hygrometers, #00613. I had these set up in the house to compare them. Hygrometer 1 and 2 read exactly the same as far as temperature. #1 registered 2% lower percentage of humidity than #2 at that temperature...

I think, as is suggested, that both misting and sprinkling need to be evaluated. Certainly neither of these should be the only options. Most of the methods, such as shading, probably should not impact the birds as misting and sprinkling could possibly do. Different protective methods need to be devi...

Louise--I have a couple small hygometers. I am going to try to do some testing inside my gourds since I still have the sprinklers up and will not be removing the gourds for a couple weeks. How much variation we will get in ambient humidity is not certain. We can get fairly hot and high humidity days...

Louise--thanks for pointing out to me, correctly, that no one had said it is "bad." My statement about "negative impacts" was an exaggeration of the "cautions" being suggested. Sorry. Thanks for the url to a thread on the topic. I think it would be great if someone could actually do a study on how m...

Rita--I hope you have good luck with misting. It certainly has worked for me here in Kansas. I know some think misting is dangerous in high humidity areas. I checked with a local ornithologist who said he was unaware of any studies of the impact of high heat indexes on birds, but doubted any signifi...

you can find the materials at most nurseries, lowes, etc. in the drip irrigation section. I do not know whether this system is ok in areas of high humidity, as one person noted. I just know that in south central kansas last year I lost 1/3 of the birds in the gourds in the heat wave before I put up ...

I can see where very high humidity could be a problem in terms of the heat index. Our humidity here was 53% today. If the humidity inside the gourd today was 62% and the temperature inside the gourd was 93, then the heat index would have been 109--the same temperature as the gourds without sprinkler...

Obviously a typo in subject line!!

Since all but 2 of my martins have fledged, I decided to do a small experiment to see the impact of the drip irrigation sprinkler set on the top of the pole. The very fine sprinkle was set at lowest flow rate so it fell down on the super gourds hanging 3 feet below the sprinkler. The ambient temp to...

Last year I lost 1/3 of baby martins to extreme heat before I put up mister/sprinkler. This year, especially with martin numbers down considerably here--22 to 14 pairs and neighbors who have had martins for years having no martins this year--, I decided I didn't want to have martins die due to heat ...

I started a drip irrigation mini sprinkler over two 8 gourd racks that still have a few birds alive in them. I lost about 40 of 90 over the 4th of July to heat--109 one day. It probably would have been a 90% kill rate except for the fact that some had already fledged. Today it is 108 and probably wi...

Just got back from being out of town. Many of late hatching martins died in gourds. When it is between 105 and 110, even the attempts at providing circulation that I made have little impact under these conditions. There are a few gourds with survivors yet, but I fully expect about 45 of the 90 birds...

Scully brought a bit of reality to my situation. I guess I will have to hope the hawks "will not" go through ithe ribbons even though it is clear I was wrong to say they "can not.". There is little doubt that they will still catch some, but I hope it will reduce their success!

I have had much trouble with Cooper's hawks picking martins off my gourds. Before I put up the guard last year, I saw the hawks catch 5 the first month the martins were here. Since I have the guard, I have seen the hawks come in numerous times, but I have never seen them be successful. I realize the...

Cooper's hawks regularly pass through my yard and I have seen them catch 2 martins. The other night I was sitting on the back porch when I heard starlings give their danger call and all the martins took off rapidly. A split second later the hawk came by, but the martins had all left in time to escap...