Purple Martin Forum

John, Thank you for posting the nice article about Ivan Ray Miller's colony in Jamesport, MO. Jamesport is located in NW Missouri about 50 miles from our home in Carrollton. My wife and I always enjoy going to his "Purple Martin Open House and Tour" the first Saturday in June each year. La...

Kathy, Regarding your question whether my Farmington, MO super colony buddy fed his martins the year of his large loss of martins: the answer is yes. And still does when the situation requires it. He's the most diligent landlord I know when it comes to caring for his martins. He is now hosting some ...

Kathy, Just to clarify for readers lest they come to an erroneous conclusion. You alluded to a Farmington, MO landlord who manages a super colony of 300+ martins and mentioned his loss of 200 birds and implied that it was a failure to feed. The sobbing (forlorn not sobbing) landlord you referred to ...

It's happened here in Carroll County (NW Missouri), and I've never seen the likes of it. Yesterday (Friday) I had an influx of 20+ sub-adults at my colony. Because all 48 compartments are now full, and because of the "warm welcome" they received by the adult martins, they all ended up obse...

John, I've been wondering about the sub-adults as well, even though I had several show up a couple of days ago. My first sub-adult arrived here roughly on time for our area. (May 1 in NW Missouri) Oddly, I've had more females show-up than usual, especially ASY females, not sure why but I'm glad. I h...

Kathy, Great job with your martins! I was telling John Miller in his post earlier about how I fared in Carroll County. (NW Missouri) We had snow for the first time in over 100 years this past Friday. That was preceded by rain, cold, more cold, then snow. I fortunately lost only one (ASY female) to s...

Thanks for the report John. I too have been wondering how Missouri landlords have fared after the recent brutal weather. Here in Carroll County, (NW Missouri) we had snow on the ground for the first time on over 100 years on May 3. (last Friday) The high reached 37 degrees which came on the heals of...

I woke up to a snow-covered landscape this morning with snow covering the crab apple trees in bloom, golf course with green grass peaking through, and my three martin houses holding 60+ martins while trapping 20+ inside their compartments. (see attached photos) The compartments that faced north and ...

Not from hawks, not from owls, not from sparrows or starlings, but from Mother Nature instead. I've seen all this before, warming weather, trees leafing out, fruit trees flowering, then wham! a cold, wet snap like the one bearing down on Carroll County, Missouri and across the state. This spells pot...

Missouri Landlords, Mother Nature nearly delivered a knock-out punch to the martins here in Carroll County, Missouri. Rain, cold, wind, more rain, more cold, more wind etc. All around lousy spring weather for martins. You're wise performing daily nest checks. I've saved no fewer than 50+ martins in ...

Hi Kathy, This year has been odd in that we had above normal rainfall and and somewhat cooler tempatures through May in northwest Missouri. As a result, my 32 pair of martins started and stopped nest building, egg laying etc. through the same time period as the rainy weather. Egg laying here ended a...

Here is my site in Carrollton, (Carroll County) Missouri. I presently have 32 compartments that are all occupied.

Best wishes to all for a successful martin season!

Daryle, Bernie is correct is his observations regarding the effective use of the double-sided sparrow trap from the PMCA . I've used the exact same method in ridding pesky HOSP using their own nest as bait. It works as Bernie suggested in the vast majority of time. For some hard to get rid of HOSP t...

Grady, Sounds to me like martin vs. martin given what you've said regarding the bald head inside the SREH compartment. Just this morning I observed a ASY male with wing entrapment and had to rescue him. When I lowered the house, I found him mostly unharmed and released him. Then I looked inside the ...

John When I started in the martin landlord business 10 years ago, I began with a single 12 unit plastic house and attracted two pair of ASY martins one(1) week into the season. Obviously these martins had no site fidelity with my location because my house didn't previously exist. I believe these adu...

The martin season is off to a running start in NW Missouri. The first of 50+ returning martins touched down on my houses on March 22, four days earlier than last year. I have two T-12 houses with conley SREH entries and eight Troyer horizontal gourds with conley 2 tunnel entries. Each day brings me ...

Kathy, I've been thinking about getting that same trap for my houses that have Conley II entrances. Question. Does the motion of raising the houses set off the trap prematurely? Or, is the tripping device not that sensitive?

Thanks!

Mike

Jack, Great set-up you have! I'm east of you about 50 miles and I've experienced the same weather and mite problem as you. Kathy is correct about the early application of sevin. It becomes ineffective after it gets wet. I usually have to reapply the sevin 2-3 times during the season to completely ri...

It's been a fabulous season here in Carroll County, Missouri with a month to go before the migration gets under way. I have 32 compartments that were fully occupied with a couple of floating sub-adult males thown in for good measure. Over 120 babies have hatched and roughly 3/4 of them have fledged....

Peggy, Sorry and horrified about your loss, it would sicken me too. We have a large coon population here as well. I use the predator guard that Louise referred to from the PMCA. It's slick because of its highly polished surface but most importantly to me is that it wobbles slightly when something tr...