Purple Martin Forum

Spiderman, I only have a few Troyer horizontals, I've mostly moved to the verticals and have fabricated individual very effective owl protection for the verticals. Fabricating a cage for the Gemini I think will present a real challenge. However, some of my Troyer horizontals have extended tunnels an...

Tom, Sorry for the late response. I haven't checked the forum for awhile. My season is in full force as I write this. After a late start due to a wet cool spring things are currently going well. One noticeable difference this season is that nest building was late and nest appear a little smaller mea...

Destroying starling nests I too have noticed more starlings breeching STE’s here in the Pacific Northwest. I have employed many types of entrapment over the years including my repeater trap that has captured a couple hundred starlings, but surprisingly they get wise to that as well. I’ve trapped the...

Hi Tom, Just wanted to let you know that though I'm not sure the individual post you refer to is mine, but it sure might be. I also provided a new update on my Northwest colony status. I posted it on the form this evening. There are more martin enthusiast near me than there use to be and that's a ve...

Hello All, I wanted to provide an update to my colony status in Silver Lake, Washington. I’m attaching the following note I posted August 1, 2017 (four years ago) Since that post I reached 100+ pairs of martins during the 2018 season and have maintained 112 pairs each of the following years. I’ve no...

Hi Everyone, My name's Ken Buker from Silverlake, WA. I'm an active martin enthusiast with a purple martin colony at my Silver lake home. My colony started in 2004 from a single pair of SY birds and has grown to over 110 pairs of martins during the 2018 and 2019 seasons fledging nearly 400 young mar...

Steve, I have always admired and enjoyed your post on the forum. Fortunately here in Washington state we don't deal with rat snakes or any other snake that climbs poles so no netting required. I do use predator guards on all my racks to detour ground predators like squirrels, racoons, and the like. ...

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Hello all, It’s been awhile since I’ve posted to the forum. Check in periodically and see what’s new, but decided I would write a short piece from the Pacific Northwest. Some forum regulars might recall my excitement, when after many years of trying I finally attracted martins to my Silver Lake back...

Hello All, Here is a final season report from my purple martin colony located at Silver Lake, WA. My last young martin fledged this morning (8/23) and as of late evening there are no martins seen or heard. This lone survivor is a story in itself and a true tribute to the parental instinct of our bel...

Hi Mary, Have not heard from you since an earlier post. Just wondering if you successfully attracted martins this season and if you had better luck with your new excluder gourds. We banded 151 young martins at my Silver Lake colony July 9th and are planning another day the 21st. Should be about that...

Hi Mary, I do use predator guards on my poles. Raccoons, stray cats and squirrels are probably my greatest concern from the ground. In my area I also use owl detour ant (owl guards) since in 2006 I nearly lost my entire (13 pair) colony as a result of an owl. My colony was only three years new at th...

Hi Mary, One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is: when I received my excluder gourds after attaching the first porch (external/internal), I didn’t like the placement in relation to the entrance. The gourds are marked with a starter dimple at the recommended position for mounting them, bu...

Hi Mary, Contrary to what you were told, with artificial gourds pre-nest material is still recommended because they just are not designed with a good gripping surface below the entrance, and are somewhat awkward for a martin to position themselves for exiting especially until there's a base establis...

Hi Mary, I Haven’t checked into the forum for awhile so just caught your post this afternoon. Wonderful to hear from other NW enthusiast on occasion. I just purchased a dozen of the new excluder gourds this spring. The ones I have are the modified excluder entrance. I too was a little reluctant abou...

Hi Louise, You are correct, the Modified EGM entrance. I will take the suggestion about moving the porches up. That makes sense to me, at least on a couple and see what happens. As a followup, do you have the owl guards, and did moving the porch up impact their installation? I might also just wait a...

Hi Everyone, It's been awhile since I've posted to the forum but learned long ago there is no better place to ask for feedback and information. Just purchased a dozen Excluder gourds for this season and would like to know how other colonies have accepted them. My colony was 85 pair strong last seaso...

Hello Debbie, It has been a while but I posted my experience of becoming a martin landlord after 30+ years trying back in 2005. Rather than rewrite it I attached the following link so you can access it in my forum post archives. http://www.purplemartin.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=695&highlight= Ho...

Hello All, It saddened me to learn of the passing on March 2, 2013 of a friend and mentor here in the Pacific Northwest, David R. Fouts. Dave played a crucial role during the last 3 decades in Purple Martin recovery efforts in the Pacific Northwest. He certainly was instrumental in providing me the ...