Thanks everyone for the kind words. It's been nice to actually see a martin up close after all of these years. I'll be hoping for a return next spring. Is a third year bird pretty late coming back? Let's say he first showed up this year on June 7th, would you expect it back around the same time or a...

I use vgy.me Go to that site and upload your photos. It's just like photobucket but free. Then click on a new post on this site, and click on "img" tab above paste the link to your image from the vgy site and it should work here. Once you upload a picture at vgy.me it will show you the direct link t...

I think he's pretty much taken off. Late last week his flights got longer with more time away from housing. I took that as a good thing because where Martin's scarce like up here, I think a single bird will have to look further away. By last weekend he was only seen once or twice in the mornings. I ...

Yes I did - with pine straw. As an aside, had I spent a few minutes early in this process I would have learned that "pine straw" is actually nothing more than pine needles. Had I done so I would have saved the $60 (+/-) I spent to have a company in Louisiana ship me a box of pine straw and, instead...

I will take your advice on the tree swallow situation next spring. Here's my housing set-up. You can see the tree swallow box 30 feet away from housing. Once you get them trained, they come back every year. When I had my first purple martin visitor in years this past month, I was happy to see the s...

Yes, still there all day every day. He was into nest building mode for a few days and now seems to fly around more, singing occasionally. I'm guessing finding the right compartment was first priority, then building a nest and now he seems to be flying high and making some vocalizations more througho...

House wrens are awful if you ever have eggs there. One got my tree swallows a couple years ago and poked and tossed their eggs and filled the nest with sticks. The males love to fill as many nest boxes as they can to show a female home many houses they own. Since then, I keep them away from my site....

That website is great! Gotta love technology being used for the right reasons. I forgot to ask you what part of the province you reside? Do you have any other bird houses up?I failed to mention that one of Health's has a pair of tree swallows. I was going to set up another box for them, but time go...

You are in a pretty quiet martin area. I used this website to track down my closest colony a few years back. Mine is 45 minute drive away so I know the feeling. https://ebird.org/map/purmar?neg=true&env.minX=&env.minY=&env.maxX=&env.maxY=&zh=false&gp=false&ev=Z&mr=1-12&bmo=1&emo=12&yr=all&byr=1900&e...

Nice pond and nice T-14. You're pretty treed in like you said, but those are some great fields out front. I'm wondering if the front of the yard has more potential as it's closer the the field side. You do have your Heath house there as I think I can see in the picture. It would be great if that row...

You're running short on time but you might have 10 days to two weeks left. Leave the house up until September so any newly born martins and even older martins will see it over their travels south. They may remember and come back next spring. Have you seen any martins this year? Are you playing the d...

I read your profile and saw that. Must have been frustrating in 2010 with the wren causes egg loss

Congratulations. That's a long wait. Enjoy it.

Heres the photo I got the other day when installed the oyster feeder and he landed back on the rack as I was cranking it up. Closest I've ever been to one, and just used my phone.

Thanks for the detailed reply. My gut was to keep doing what I'm doing and change nothing. The dawnsong turns off on it's own at 2pm and he behaves no differently with it on or off. Even when it was loud for the first day or two that he was here, he'd just do his thing and not even bother with the s...

Ryan any more updates? I'll tell you the updates and you tell me what you think. So I first saw him a week ago today. He's been here every day since and for almost every minute of daylight after the first day or two. The last three or four days he's been always at the site or within visual distance...

Thanks everyone. Appreciate the replies. He's still here. I turned the volume way down yesterday and it didn't effect him. Yesterday he was at the housing all day from 7 am until I left at 5pm. It would do short flys and come back quickly, for the entire day. He was there again this morning and I go...

Pretty sure you're good to go now without the artificial song.

You can see from my signature line at the bottom that I don't see many purple martins up here. Three in nine years. I have't seen one in five, but on Friday my Dad sent me a text that something that looked like a purple martin was on the housing. I stopped in today and sure enough there is a SY male...

I'm not there all that much. The two that I've seen in the past were on a schedule and would stop by in the afternoon. I do see your point that I may be getting flyovers and not seeing but with so few actual Martin houses up I figured they'd check the place out here and there and I'd see one at some...