Purple Martin Forum

Avoiding that term due to the controversy surrounding it, but partially. Main reason for 'how much early' is to compare with similar reports of very early behaviour in other species.

Told my sister one year that I was expecting the martins in February and she told my sister in law who asked, “Do I know that family”? :lol: Not that uncommon of a last name, once got to introduce two Mike Martins. Look on their faces was priceless. On topic: How much early is this season? Weeks or...

No Martins yet so can not comment on that aspect. Here on our little hobby farm have seen crows chasing hawks many times. Always the larger hawks, never seen them go after the smaller hawks that are the greater threat to small birds. At work (15 miles away and very rural) witnessed a crow come insid...

Sad, I knew him from the Bat House Forum.

Sad indeed. Apparently uncommon but adult Bluebirds can be caught away from nests. Just yesterday came home from shopping and found a large black rat snake with a Bluebird still being constricted. Near the top of a ten foot fence. (Deer - garden...) Hurriedly took a few pictures then tried to rescue...

Pretty sure Georgia is still a southern state :wink: Not only have Tree Swallows I think they are becoming colonial. Had a pair in the house on the Sheppard hook and a pair in the rack this year. Too busy to move them this year so let it ride... Thought they were not supposed to nest ~30 feet apart?...

Dave, histoplasmosis is some serious stuff. Not sure if HOSP poop is risky but did see a mention of Starlings. Birdbrain, one of the Homedepots near me tried metal spikes in the bottom of the letters on the front of the store. Noticed them a few years ago as they had a third of the parking lot block...

Click the 'down' arrow by your name at the top of the page, then "Edit Profile". Mine should now have "Central" added if I did every thing correct.

Do not know enough about PM houses to offer any constructive criticism, but looks good to me... Do wonder how you plan to join the edges on the roof? Those boards are rough sawn (make great bat house baffles!) seems like it would be labor intensive to smooth out the edges enough to get a water tight...

Another thing that helps is to remove their habitat. Thick bushes, hedges, cedar trees etc. that they like to hide in. Home Depot and Lowes would probably be upset if we removed all their stores :wink: Other than occasionally shopping center parking lots, those are the only places I see HOSP. Do ha...

BillieJR, the Martin gourd racks at Animal Kingdom are not accessible by the public. My brother worked there as a photo-pass photographer for five years and never got to see them. A few racks at Epcot are in public view.

My brother used to work for Disney as a Photo Pass photographer. He took several nice pictures of the Epcot Gourd racks about three years ago... Thought I had shared them some where, must have been on the Bat House forum which is down at the moment. (Virus, and Joe is very busy with real life plus h...

To clarify the protection status of Purple Martins: Unfortunately, outside of the nesting season the Migratory Bird Treaty Act offers less protection to our martins. Technically, to the letter of the law, after the nesting season is complete the protections to martins are reduced to a prohibition o...

When you see a bank of lights at an athletic field and have to take a second look to make sure it's not a gourd rack. :oops: :oops: :oops: Don't laugh :lol: :lol: :lol: . It happened to me :roll: :roll: :roll: Ah, found this thread again! Wife and I were driving somewhere a few days ago, deliberate...

Ren, please contact me at the address in my profile. I may have a solution. Most email has a 25 MB limit, even so called unlimited email such as a Gmail account is going to have problems with a file larger than 500 MB. Happen to have some web space that is barely being used. (846.5 MB of 4.88 GB) so...

Especially hard to find today due to the spike in scrap metal prices a few years back. My son works at a scrap yard and says only a handful have come in in the past two years and all were 'mangled' as he described it. Still have hope he will find me one... Ended up building mine with thin wall (EMT)...

Do not have Martins yet :-( And only saw my first Tree Swallows this year after playing the dawn song. (They did not stay! :) ) Where I work has a bunch of Northern Rough-winged Swallows and have noticed no decrease in their numbers this year. Just looked and while they migrate, they do not go as fa...

Like the barbed wire idea marcus! Will not help around my martin pole but one of my blue bird houses is near a fence. The clips Bird Brain is using are very strong, probably a lot stronger than the ones that came on my dove decoys. Still might rotate if used on a round rod. Below is how I solved thi...

Marcus, the decoys I found at that price are foam. Are these the ones you use? Doubt they would hold up to being chewed on as well as plastic, but they are so cheap could consider them single use.

Some hole saw arbors have enough extra thread you can nest a smaller one inside the larger as a guide. Have done this myself and it should work unless the original hole was against an edge.

Much safer and way more expensive option is a knockout punch.