Purple Martin Forum

Live in eastern Ontario, just saw one male martin yesterday but house was closed and he didn't stay. Opened up house and immediately our 10 tree swallows are interested. Got 5 boxes setup for them and needed to set box with sparrow door for HS #1, had him in few hours but until the tree swallows set...

I feel your disappointment, we had a houseful of martins last year but something went wrong in our area of Ontario and got no babies fledged, there were eggs and young but adults all left for some unknown reason, perhaps too cold and no bugs. Fingers are crossed for them this year.

We have found it so much easier to have a separate box with trap door for catching our HS. Got the plans off site last year and had great success with it. They enter, the latch closes and we have him ready for the bottle. We used to use the door on martin house but now don't have to lower and raise ...

Wonderful to hear about eggs, we have only seen one male scout so far in Ontario.

Wonderful that your bluebirds are standing their ground, we have houses for martins, tree swallows and bluebirds but in past ours have been so passive that the house sparrows create chaos. We have had hs kill bluebirds and build nest on top of babies. Think this year that we have so many tree swallo...

We just arrived home in Ontario from Florida and have seen one male Martin, as soon as we opened their house, a male House sparrow showed up, then opened his house with trap door and soon had him in the bottle at back. Chalk up one less HS pest.

We returned from Florida on April 10th, glad we cleaned out our Trio 12 in the fall, had both male and female arrive on the 12th. As soon as we took out the stops the male had his spot. On the 14th we saw 3 males, 1 female. It's good to hear the martins singing again.

Our separate house with the spar-o-door has worked excellent this year. We have eliminated 10 HOSP - 7 M / 3 F. Our martins are nesting undesturbed.

We use a small wooden house built to fit the Spar O door to trap our HsSp. The side door has an interior screen to allow ID of trapped bird. If sparrow, hold large mouthed plastic jar over hole, open flipper and he flies into jar. Hold jar tight to house, slide to one side and slip jar quickly onto ...

Seeing the first baby's head stick out one of the openings in our martin house. Cecile

Thanks for the posts. We have 4 bluebird houses in addition to our purple martin house. Each year if we are lucky we get one nesting pair and a successful fledge. Have not seen any bluebirds yet. Like how you offered the mealworms right on the house. Cecile

2 pairs of martins huddled in the house while it snowed for 5 minutes, temp will be below freezing tonight. Put dish of dried mealworms on deck of house, hope they figure out that it's food for survival.

We arrived home from Florida last night, this morning there were 6 tree swallows flying about and a pair of martins sitting on our Trio house. We immediately went out to clean out house (9 nests), set our house sparrow door trap on separate wooden house and opened our bluebird/tree swallow boxes. Wi...