Your video is awesome, and from the looks of the housing you've provided, I can't see anything that would deter Martins from inhabiting your site. In fact, you have all the necessary incentives for PM's to nest! I'm going to guess at one problem that might be causing failure to attract Martins...yo...

I took a video of my satellite martin housing a couple months back. I was testing out a new lens and thought a spin with the drone around the housing would be a good test. So this site in the video has never seen a martin, they're very rare up here. It's been up for three or four seasons now. It's o...

here's is a big colony on Isle Calumet, is that the one you are refering too at 27 miles ? Hi Yves! Yes, that's the one, it's in the picture above with my new housing there. I found it a few years ago thanks to your submission on Ebird. I tried to track you down online with no luck haha. Know of an...

Hi Ryan, Your perseverance is truly inspirational. This is thinking way outside the box (probably ridiculously so), but what about constructing a large Martin house, similar to the ones at that active site on that lake approx. 27 miles to your northeast. Perhaps even finding a location you could pl...

I would be curious to see how many active colonies are close to you and what their populations are. It would appear to me that you just have a very low populations of martins in that area. Even if you had a poor location with tree etc. (which you don't) you would be seeing some visitors with the da...

They're two PM decoys.

So year eight is in the books with zero activity at my site. This is now the fourth year that I haven't even seen a martin. I've seen two in 8 years now. One SY male stopped in occasionally in year 1 and year 4. Looking at martin housing from a birds eyes view really gives a unique look. I took my d...

Great story and thread. Keep it going next year, I’m sure you’ll have a pair or two to post about. I’m so jealous that you had one landing in the yard before you had a house up. Damn, that’s a good sign. I take it you have a colony or two fairly close by? I’ve only seen two martins in eight years he...

I haven’t seen one in four years. You can’t do much other than laugh about it. They’ve taken beatings up north and here in Ontario we went through what you’re seeing now. Old unmanaged colonies that had been around forever slowly disappear. Some tough springs took its toll and everything else that g...

Keep plugging away. You have Martin's close by which is a nice thing to have in your back pocket. Wish I had that. Give it time and it will happen. This has really taught me to be patient. I never thought I'd be in year 8 and have seen only two Martin's over that time. Just try and step back and rel...

Yes all of the points marked around Campbell's bay are from the colony that I now have housing at. The ebird points are sometimes sloppy. It's a very nice area on a large island. There may be one more old colony there as there are some older marks from sighting from about 10 years ago, but I did not...

About 25 miles NorthEast. Every colony is East of me and far. This is a really good site for people trying to track down local colonies. https://ebird.org/map/purmar?neg=true&env.minX=-78.20124775100021&env.minY=45.022279352145695&env.maxX=-74.44941669631271&env.maxY=46.03814817018837&zh=true&gp=tru...

He only had about 6 ASY birds back a week ago. Hope he gets more as his numbers have been in a free fall and at these current numbers he'll be close to getting wiped out in a season or two.

It was eerily similar to my story, from the closest current colonies,, to the past old colonies now gone, to the tree swallows in large numbers. Very similar. Thanks for sharing in detail, it gives hope. Encouraging for sure, however the toughest part of my quest I really think is being at the north...

That must feel great after so long. Year 8 here. I’ve read a lot on this topic in preparation of some day having a pair show up. I think most experienced landlords will tell you to stop playing the CD and let the birds do the real thing. You can’t beat the real thing. Congratulations, it’s hard to i...

Nice. I always wondered how they would react to the drone.

Those are some detailed notes. Impressive and congrats.

I hope to one day make some notes like that, well probably not as detailed ha. Good luck with them. No doubt you'll do well.

I may go that route but they seem pricey. Amazon has a three pack for $50. Not sure what one container is worth...pretty sure when it was around here it wasn't that much.

Ebay is $70 for the same three pack with the $35 shipping included. A single container on ebay is about $35 with shipping.

Good idea, thanks.

Thank you Matt. I did get a favour from the man who used to make the WDC plates. He made up two dozen for me this winter to use at my local sites. Back in 2010 the WDC was more popular and easier to find. I wanted to use the same plate at the site with martins as I have on my empty home site in case...