Purple Martin Forum

Those wings look perfect, just curious if you drew those on free hand before cutting or if you were able to trace from a picture or something. I'd like to try this but not sure my free hand drawing and subsequent cut out would look that good.

Thanks in advance.

Some of you may remember a few posts of mine last year as I helped to start a PM colony project at an elementary school in Lawrence, KS. The kids learned about martins and were excited about the project, however we were disappointed that we failed to attract any nesting pairs. Since starting our pro...

Sad to report that we were unsuccessful in our initial attempt to start a colony at Hillcrest Elementary School this year. I took the Alamo and Troyer gourds down, cleaned them up and they'll be ready to try again next year. Not sure what the numbers say for this area, but i did not see as many mart...

Gene, the setup is at Hillcrest, just southeast of 9th and Iowa. Dorn, let's me know how the trapping works for you. I'm open to building or trying new things although our budget is limited. I did build a small house with gourd trap mounted to the inside of the entrance. I filled it with feathers an...

The house is completely open on 3 sides and has trees about 40 or so feet away on the 4th side. We have great equipment, including decoys and dawnsong. We have small established colony to feed off of less than a mile away. We don't have a lot of water around, but the Kansas river and a decent size p...

I'm sad to say that with the last day of school coming tomorrow, we have had no luck attracting any martins to our site. I have seen Martins in the sky (albeit in fewer number than years past), and had 2 pair do a fly by a couple weeks ago, but have not yet seen any land on our set up. Kids enjoyed ...

We've had a very slow start with the school project, but just today had 2 pair flying really close to the house. I went to start dawnsong this morning and they almost landed right on the house with me right under it. Interestingly, when I backed off, so did they. They were back this evening taking a...

Would a HOSP have any trouble fitting through a 1 1/2 inch round hole? Could a Martin? Thanks.

I'm helping with the elementary school PM project. No martins yet, but plenty of sparrows. The kids have been going out during the week to tear out sparrow nests and I am trying to trap them on the weekends. I'm using the T14 metal insert trap, but not having any success. The sparrows have been goin...

Not good news here. I had one pair at home last year and nothing yet this year. My home set up is less than ideal (trees), but I'll still try. The PM colony project at the elementary school has seen no martins at this point. Battling sparrows big time. Kids at the school are excited, so really hopin...

None at my place or at the new school colony. I drive by 3-4 other established colony sites when going to and from work each day, and haven't seen a Martin yet.

We do have the nest trays. They are in the house turned around backwards right now to discourage sparrows. Also have the pine straw for the kids to put in the trays/gourds when it's time to open up the house. Have dawnsong and decoys to put up and will probably smear a little mud around the entrance...

Thanks for the response. I hadn't thought about it, but yes Jayhawks are certainly always welcome at our housing. Maybe we'll alternate between the Rock Chalk chant and dawnsong :P. Seriously though, I think we have everything we need to get started. Bob at the PMCA was great to award us the BOGO gr...

Hello, I wanted to let this forum know of a Purple Martin project in the works for this spring. Hillcrest Elementary School in Lawrence, KS is starting a Purple Martin Colony Project this spring. With the help of the BOGO grant from the PMCA, 4th grade students will be learning about Martins and hel...