Purple Martin Forum

Thanks Whippy. Why we didn’t think about that at the time I’m not sure. We do have the um tool to take them out and live in a somewhat rural area with no one behind us. Chalk it up to brain fog as we just returned from a several day’s stressful trip and are both tired. Plus we’re getting older so th...

All of our martins have fledged. We had one late nest that fledged a week ago. Not once during the season did we see any House Sparrows. We do regular nest checks. Today a pair of HS started building a nest in one of the gourds. Hubby decided to pull out nest and plug all the gourds. When the HS’s c...

We can’t do anything about the hawks except try to scare them off when one makes routine stops. We did that for several evenings when one kept coming at dusk right when the last couple of martins returned. We used air horns as soon as we saw him. He was fast, smart and never came from the same direc...

Our martins usually hang around for a few days after they fledge. It’s comical to watch the parents trying to round them up in the evening and get them into the correct gourd. Some will try to go into the wrong one and get kicked out. What has always amazed us is that when there is only one nest lef...

If you have other chicks his size I would watch to see when they fledge.
Good thinking to leave the light on overnight. Yes, I’d call that a miracle too

Brent,
I did a search and found this topic. Hope it helps. It does mention cat food.

viewtopic.php?t=34751

Brent, Is there any chance you can continue hand feeding him? It sounds like he is doing well under your care. 26 days is the earliest they supposedly can fledge but in my experience the parents wait until they are about 30 days depending on how late it is in the season. The only time I’ve ever seen...

I think you did the right thing. We also had a baby on the ground not even close to fledgling age. We’re certain an SY pulled him out. We put him in the gourd we were pretty sure he came out of and he has been OK since. We also had a brood of seven with a small runt. He was at the bottom of the pile...

Cool whips, Do you know the age of the babies sticking their heads out? If they are 22 days or older you need to plug the entrance to those gourds. We do that by using small old socks with a long string tied to them. You could use other things that are soft enough to be able to pull out. We lower th...

Almost :grin:. We have all but one gourd with nests and young. The one has an SY staying in it. We have 26 Troyer Horizontal gourds. We’ve been checking every five days and at our last nest check we counted 122 young and 2-3 eggs (maybe more because they were buried so well) that had not yet hatched...

Spiderman, That is very sad to lose so many. I’m really sorry to hear that. We only have 28 gourds and all but one have babies or eggs, Most of ours have hatched. Someone is sleeping in the one gourd that doesn’t have a nesting pair so it’s probably a subadult. I noticed more of them visiting today ...

UPDATE: Yesterday’s nest check revealed one of the nestlings that had been attacked was missing. I’m guessing he probably died and was removed by a parent. The other nestling from a different gourd apparently was OK as they were all accounted for and I couldn’t see any difference between them. We do...

Re-read my last post and realized I made it sound like I thought it was a mockingbird. Sorry, that is not what I meant. After reading other’s comments about mockingbirds I DON’T think it was a mockingbird that attacked the young. I DO think it was a male subadult. I have seen them sticking their hea...

Whippy, A male SY was my original thought and after reading these replies about the mockingbirds I feel certain that is who is injuring and tossing out these helpless young. We do not have any HS around. Have not seen one anywhere near our colony. We have a large window in our family room and readin...

We did a nest check yesterday afternoon and found a 2-3 do baby on the ground. He was still alive so he must not have been there long because it was 90 degrees. He had a couple of very small places on his body that looked like he had been pecked. We don’t have any HS around so I attributed it to one...

Kathy, I too want to thank you for your excellent blog concerning predator guards. We’ve been hosting martins for sixteen years now but didn’t get off to a good start. We are one of those who lost our first nest of six 12 day old martins and the mama to a rat snake. We thought we were safe as we had...

I’m in Georgetown but I guess I don’t count even though our two cities are next to each other.

Whenever a red tail is nearby I see the martins and other birds dive bombing him. However I would be a little uncomfortable if one was sitting on top of my martin pole. It’s amazing how the martins and other birds recognize a predator bird from one non threatening. We have black bellied whistling du...

John, We spend a lot of time in Boerne so I know how beautiful the hill country is. We always go the back way on 281 then hop onto Hwy 46 instead of taking the freeway for that exact reason. We pass a lot of ranches that have exotic animals. Are your blackbuck antelopes considered exotic? Yes, anyti...

John, I’m in Texas too. We did a nest check two days ago. It was in the late afternoon. The martins had not left all day so we decided they would just have to deal with it :lol: They weren’t happy, kept flying around and as soon as we finished our first pole of Troyer gourds, they immediately went b...