Purple Martin Forum

I'll be giving a short field day talk at the colony at the Missouri Department of Conservation Nature Center, Cape Girardeau, Mo., at 10 a.m. Sat., June 20. The staff there is monitoring the colony house in two racks of gourds and Chirpy Nest chalets and counting 12 nesting pairs. We'll lower and sh...

If you are placing this in the entrance and letting adults track it inside, likely they are getting directly onto bare, thin skin of young not yet feathered. It's my understanding that permethrin does not deteriorate as quickly as carbaryl when exposed to humidity -- not a good thing -- and I'd be v...

This generally are lower risk. I'm wondering if you placed onto the outside of some gourds and did not fully open the back wall. This creates a tight foyer where birds trying to turn around inside, or if fighting inside it, are more prone to entrapment at the exits.

One concern from me would be that the nests have eggs, not young. The female is sensitive to the location of her nest bowl she is incubating. So I'd be extra careful, but you say nests have dried out. Hope you have a good season.

Obituary notice for one of our great landlords. A decade or more ago Rev. Seber posted a great deal here. Much of what I know I learned from him. https://www.wjle.com/james-thurman-seber/

I hope you can work something out. You probably know, but as a protected bird species, disturbing the existing housing while birds are nesting would be a violation of federal law. Perhaps you can email or call the PMCA and get them to give you a written statemen to this effect, and you can take it t...

Continuous rain over several days can indeed cause death of young, especially newly hatched to about 15 days. I think some die of cool temps -- they don' t have feathers yet and the parents don't sit on them, but are out trying to find food, and of course rain clears the air of insects. As said, if ...

Not much exact with purple martins. If your adult male is spending the night, that's encouraging that his presence likely will bring in others...at least a few. One really needs to work up to a colony of 12 to 20 pairs to have reliable returns each year, so you are doing well so far. Yes, martins th...

Starlings are a little unpredictable, but it's my experience that if one lets the nest advance to eggs and then removes, the starlings will abandon -- even more likely to abandon if you let advance to babies and remove. I You can take steps as others said to make the entrance more restrictive to sta...

Do those gourds have porches? Makes it easier for martins to enter. Might also consider working in a couple of natural gourds (painted white for heat reduction) with round holes; just makes it easier for investigating martins to check things out and of course natural gourds are widely used in Missis...

I read somewhere that house sparrows were released into Hawaii -- even there -- to help control agriculture insect pests. They feed insects to their young. Ooophs, after that they eat grain crops.

The martins should switch to the new gourds okay, with one caveat. Probably the old housing has round holes, and the gourds may all be SREH. Martins that nested the previous year at a site that used round holes sometimes struggle with SREH for a few days; finally one will enter and others follow -- ...

I try to do a nest check here in St. Louis in mid to late June, when a lot of the babies are 10 to 15 days but of course the stages of nests will differ. I tap about 1/8 teaspoon (I use long teaspoon) down into couple of corners of nests in gourds, or in houses I might slip it under the nests. As ca...

You don't want to change the nest until the babies are 10 days at least. When they are still tiny, they ideally need a small, tight nest bowl so they can cling together for warmth and helping assure that each one gets fed. Sometimes if the parents are poor nest builders, newly hatched ones get scatt...

I do not find a manufactuer date on the canisters. There are what I guess are lot numbers, but I don't have access to information to correlate to manufacture date. The Petstrong website has a form where you can ask questions. Might be worth a try.

I too received advice via email from Southern Ag to try ordering on Amazon. When I tried, Amazon said they could not ship to my address (Missouri). Searching online, I found Southern AG Carbaryl 5% Dust, 1 lb canisters, at Peststrong, Inc. If you search online, confirm right company. Address is 6400...

So, if my math is correct, the bottom is 32 inches off the ground. I would have hoped that would have been high enough that it would force a snake to have to wrap its lower self around the pole to advance up and then might not be able to get past the guard. Maybe higher still would help; I don't kno...

Scott I agree. Kentucky martins are the best -- except for martins in all the other states. And I agree that probably a lot of martins present simply do not nest because of lack of housing or established housing with existing colonies where they feel comfortable. Keep up your good work, John Miller

How high is the bottom of your guard above the winch? I'm consulting with public site in Missouri where a friend chased a snake in the grass away a few days ago. They decline to try netting and risk the public finding a caught dead snake -- but they may raise guard higher. I'm suggesting to them tha...

The product marketed as "Sevin" by Garden Tech no longer contains carbaryl 5%. I'm referring to the dust (not liquid form) in a canister. Carbaryl is highly effect against mites (with active mites, apply about 1/8 teaspoon "indirectly" under or at sides of nests and mites are gon...