Purple Martin Forum

It’s embarrassing to admit it but today I got very jealous. Went to my parents house, which is about 3 miles away with a well established colony, and they had 2 martins on the house. Left there and on the way out of their neighborhood I saw at least 6 more martins on 2 different colony’s. Came home ...

I’m looking forward to answers to this as well, haven’t heard anything from Mr Steve this year yet and I’m starting to worry about him! Before I joined the forum I always paid special attention to what he had to say because in my opinion that he is a very informative person about martins.

Sorry for the sideways photo I’m still new at this lol

Here is the upgraded housing I put up. I got the create a rack gourd rack from the website and hung 3 super gourds on it. System is really easy to install and the gourds look like they are more than comfortable for 3 lucky pairs. For people like me that are limited to how much housing you can put up...

I don’t have any birds yet thank goodness and my parents colony doesn’t either they usually get birds the first week of February. I’m in northwest la near Shreveport and the weather looks bad here. Thurs low is 28, Friday 22, Saturday 27, Sunday 26, Monday 29. That’s in the city and normally the act...

I have seen that, I’m in northwest Louisiana and the highs this weekend and next are in the 40’s and lows in the 20’s. Hoping my birds take their time getting here!

Just a quick update, I went went the create a rack gourd rack to attach to the pole under my housing. I ordered 3 crescent hole supergourds with porches to put on the rack. Excited to get it up and hopefully all 3 will be occupied this season!

Well that makes me feel better, I’m about to add 3 gourds under my existing house and am leaning towards round holes so I might just go with it

When me and my wife built our house 2 years ago it was hard to hide one of the main things I was looking at in the lot was enough room for a Martin colony lol I lucked out and it was what we both wanted being that I’m way more obsessed than she is!

Good looking site! Do you see a preference from the martins wether they like the round hole or crescent more? I’m planning on adding a few gourds under my house and I don’t have a starling problem at all so I was thinking about using round holes. The current house they would go under has crescent ho...

I need some advice, I just started my current colony last year with 2 pairs and 2 sy males that hung around all summer. I have a 8 room house and am looking for a way to add a few gourds below. Do any of y’all have experience with this add a rack thing? It looks like it is what I need by just securi...

Has anyone heard from Steve this year? Before joining the forum back in my creeping days, I would always enjoy his updates, plus he’s in the same area I am. Hoping all is ok

I have never pre nested before and I’m torn wether to do it or not. Yes I understand it helps the martins out and they can go straight to laying eggs. But at the same time I feel like we are taking even more wild away from the birds, one day they might not even know how to build a nest if we do it f...

Thank y’all for the warm welcome! I am excited for the future of my colony and do plan on expanding most likely next year. Between our new baby and the new house I’ve put expanding the colony on the back burner but I for sure have the fever and will be in the future!

-Austin

Hello all, just introducing myself real quick. My name is Austin and have been following the forum for quite a while now and finally joined the party! I grew up around martins with my grandfather and my dad and just fell in to it. I moved into a new house last year in northwest Louisiana and was luc...