Purple Martin Forum

A nest of 5 babies soon to fledge, but female adult is dead and the male is doing nothing. The babies are alive but lethargic. Any thing we can do?

We had an adult couple here for a day around April 15 and then nothing until today, except for pesky sparrows that we have eradicated for the moment...Then this morning after the rain cleared we have had a number of adult couples checking out the house and the first sub-adult male we have seen this ...

Thanks for your help...Yes, you are right, the predator guard does snap out...We have ordered the Universal sparrow trap....Thanks again for the help. We did just catch one with by using a smaller entry hole and sticky trap, but will feel better with the Universal trap as we will know when we captur...

We are just east of you Candace, in north KC and got our first pair yesterday. They are both adults (male and female). We are originally from Omaha, NE and this is our first year trying for martins in Missouri. Hopefully they are just waiting for better weather.

Thanks for responding. The internal predator guards are molded into the floor of the pod, so are not removable.

We recently purchased a Quad Pod House from Heritage Farms and have not been able to find any commercial sparrow traps that will work. Does any one know of one or have suggestions for how to make one that will work on the house. Thanks, Jodi

Thanks everyone for the input.

We would buy one at like Best Buy, etc. or where do we begin to look. I am assuming when you say the nest cam would work, that we can hook it up to our cable? Thanks Dave.

We are interested in putting a video camera on our house that will allow us to watch the Martins on a television. Just can't spend all of our time at the window, even though we would like to. At this point we are not looking for a video recorder or camera inside the nests, but just so we can observe...

This was our second year to have Martins and we did have mites and dusted with seven per the instructions we found on the forum. Since then, I have had a long-time martin landlord recommend that we use diameteous earth because it is safer than Seven. I understand that diameteous earth is the crushed...

It was suggested by a landlord in Nebraska to use pine chips, rather than cedar chips...When I put cedar chips in last year, the female pushed many of them out....So will try the pine this year. The first nest check (10 days) is due tomorrow. Last year I took everything out of the nest and replaced ...

Just finished reading the Bird Forum thread. Whew!!! Mark really took a lot of heat. Thanks Mark for your efforts. My opinion of the thread was that there were a lot of folks there who had their own opinion and basically did not want to be "confused by the facts. ". I agree, Mary, it may b...

Yes, Kathi- You were one of the posts I was referring to. You gave me hope with your post....We had about given up....Not that we would have thrown out the eggs, but we were feeling a bit discouraged. Thanks again for all you advice...I am an avid reader of the forum...and always appreciate your com...

Finally, after much hand wringing and lots of questions....We have hatched! 5 eggs and 5 babies! First egg was layed May 25th, and I had calculated June 9th as "hatching day"....but probably due to the inclement weather...June 17th was the day. So to those of you worrying about "late&...