Purple Martin Forum

My experience has been that occasionally you will have a martin that doesn't like the decoys, so I don't think they hurt things very often. I have seen live and in person a hawk swoop in and hit a decoy giving the martins time to escape. I have also came home many times finding my decoys knocked ove...

If you look at the geo locator studies it typically doesn't take very long from when the martins leave South America until they arrive at their colony. Even the ones going to the northern ranges cross the gulf and arrive at their colony in around a week, sometimes less. A majority of the martins com...

Could be a few different things. At my old colony the first ASY's would show up for a day or so, then disappear for a few days and then come back for good. It was that way each year. At my new colony I don't see that. It could have been a martin from somewhere further north that just stuck around fo...

The majority of the ASY's in my area have not returned yet. I had over 45 pair last year and right now I only have about 12 martins back. So you have plenty of time for ASY's to return. I'm in Indiana so we are in the same general area. I read a study on here years ago that said you statistically yo...

I am guessing the tennis ball in the cavity is just something different when they look in. I don't think it will keep them out permanently. Kind of like when you add an insert trap. They realize something is different at first and they are ether slow to re enter or will sometimes go to a different c...

If I am reading correctly the TS already have claimed their own house (no the PM house) and are only perching near the PM house? If that is the case you should be OK. My TS perch near the PM's a lot and they don't have issues. The good news is, if that ASY males sticks around it can be like an insta...

I've also heard of people making snake netting traps on the ground around their housing. Like making a 6 foot circle fence around the pole with snake netting, like a small jail fence. Keeping the snakes from making it to the pole.

Here are a few pictures. You can see the box/carrier I made. It goes around the pole and has holes in it for the cable to run through and then up and over the pulley and back down through the other side. The picture of the top of the pole just shows how I slotted the pole and recessed the pulley (ga...

There is not set measurement for the distance between poles. I usually put my pole far enough apart so when they are all lowered I can still get the mower between them and work between them with plenty of room. The thought is that the martins associate human housing with safety due to human activity...

I wasn't referring to the winch and cable, more the pole and rods. Depending on what size the pole is, extra gourds could be a problem depending on how many there are.

It will be close if the pipe is exactly 5 inches square. If I recall right (it's been a year since I built a T14) the outside width of the box is exactly 8 inches. A 2x is actually 1 1/2 inches wide so the pipe and 2 sections of 2x would be exactly 8 inches as well. Should be able to make it happen.

I have seen people retrofit tunnels with SREH onto natural gourds. But to me if I was going to buy tunnels, caps, etc. I would just buy plastic gourds.

I am not at my computer right now so I don't have many pics. I found an old link that shows a couple pics of the first carrier I built to go around my round pole. Same type of carrier could be built for a square pole. You can see the "T" nuts in the carrier, each section of the house has 4 holes dri...

The commercially made T14 poles are nice, I put one up for a friend after building a T14 for him last year. One thing about them is your T14 has to have some rails built onto the back of it. Depending on how your T14 is mounted currently you may have to make some modifications to the house. Both of ...

It shouldn't be hard to trap. Once they find a cavity they stick with it. I've only had one breach in over 15 years of having martin housing.

Not sure what your plans are with the gourds but they make some mounting arms that allow you to hang 4 gourds under a T14. I have them on both of my T14s.

Flushing them away will do nothing. You can do it all day and they will come back as soon as you go back in. You will need to trap or shoot the HOSP or risk it destroying eggs later in the season. For some it's an unfortunate part of housing martins, It doesn't bother me because I know the native bi...

Lows got in the low 20's over night, still in the 20's right now and all the martins I have back are sitting out on the porches soaking up some sun. I have also seen a few of them flying off and coming back so they appear to have gotten along just fine the last couple days. Supposed to be sunny all ...

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Heres one of many threads from the search button....

Not sure what part of OH you are in but I am in central Indiana not far from the state line. Yesterday it was in the mid 40's and they were out feeding. Today it only got into the mid to high 30's. I saw them out on the porches a few times but never saw them leave to try to feed. It's supposed to be...