Purple Martin Forum

In my opinion, the martin "chatter" CD is a better magnet for attracting martins, especially early in the season. "Dawn song" is a very specific time for martins, when eggs have been laid and males are serenading females. This makes it a very specific and relatively short time pe...

Another of several reasons to go porchless on your housing......

There are three steps to getting permanent martins. First, they land on your house, Second, they go in a room, and Third most important, they spend the night. If they don't spend the night, you just have visitors

The simple answer is, the more established your colony is, the lower you can put your housing. Mine is about 11' from ground to bottom of house. I could go lower and it would not bother them. Been at this location 20 yrs. 72 pair last year.

I think if you prenest, you miss out on one of the joys of being a landlord...watching the martins as they gather nesting material from your roof or raised platform. I provide nesting material in this manner, and even though I have had hawk problems in the past, they seem to know when the coast is c...

Remarkable (troubling?) the lack of scout reports in Texas and Louisiana so far. Last year, LA. had 32 scout reports by this date; TX had 6. Neither state has reported even one yet. The last 5 year average is LA. 16 reports & TX. with 5 by this date (1/23). The weather hasn't exactly been welcom...

Having been a landlord for 50 years, it has been my experience that it doesn't matter if you have extra cavities per se.....what matters is having FEMALE subbies available to mate with. Subbie males wreak havoc because they don't have a mate. I ALWAYS have more males than females at my colony. The r...

I was mainly referring to putting up gourds vs. houses. You should definitely try to put up a better product.

I always tell new landlords just starting out to check out existing colonies close to you, and start by using the same housing as they are.

Just curious..........why would you want them to come back if they eventually end up as hawk food? Unless the hawks have disappeared, the repeat of your earlier problem seems sadly inevitable.

The larger hawks like red-tailed, red shouldered, and others generally aren't agile enough to catch adult martins: however, the ones in my area DO catch fledgling martins. They grab them off the tops of trees where they rest when learning to fly. The fledgling martins freeze when a hawk approaches a...

I use the 100/90/80 rule...Out of 100 eggs laid, you hope 90 hatch and 80 fledge. Or, if you have 100 hatch, you shoot for 90 fledge. I feel this is an above average outcome for a season.

I have experienced a 5-10% return of my banded nestlings since 2005.

I tend to agree with your theories Matt. I was hoping that since this was a ASY pair, they would be a little more diligent about taking care of their young. SY pairs are notorious for being less than ideal parents, especially late nesting pairs, probably for some of the reasons you cited.

I have been a landlord for 50 years, and this year I experienced a first: A pair raising a second brood. This is a ASY pair that fledged 4 on May 30, brought them back each evening for about a week. I noticed around the end of June that this female was spending time in the same room. Lowered the hou...

Day time chatter at the beginning and end of season; dawnsong in the middle

In my opinion, you can change housing design all you want, but if you have a hawk problem, it won't matter. It sounds like you once had a thriving colony in your old housing, so the martins left because of hawk predation, not because they suddenly didn't like your houses.

Emil, I would be a little skeptical about the Point Blank scout sighting all things considered.

Gary Berger

As far as what housing to use.........scout around your area for existing colonies and see what type of housing they are using. Use the same to start your colony...........you can eventually transition your colony to housing you prefer if you want.

I have about 40 staying overnight. First arrived early on Jan. 26. I live 290/Hollister.

Gary Berger