Purple Martin Forum

Looking good so far!!! Moreso when compared to last year! For the first time in many years, I'm not quite ready. Have all gourds hung but need to put in fresh pine needles and raise the racks. Gotta get on the ball as they showed up on Feb 9th last year and I don't want to discourage any early arriv...

The roost that has been at Highland Mall in Austin, Texas for at least the last 4 or 5 years moved to Capitol Plaza this year.
The distance is only about 1/2 mile South.

Wow...that's very nice.
Is this in addition to the larger colony in the more open field?

Yeah, 4-5 days was killing me. I had stopped just short of pulling out the folding blind....but had it in the hallway of the house! Already tried shooting AND trapping but they just wouldn't fall for it. I had already been after them for 3 days when the couple told me the trick. Sometimes when you g...

Most excellent!
Thank you for sharing this.

This has been an up and down season for sure but after it is all said and done, my numbers are up also.
Should be a good "recovery year" for Martins everywhere.

It worked amazingly for me so somebody try this! I was talking to an old couple who have been Martin Landlords forever and have shared tips with me before. They moved into town about 12 years ago and restarted their colony and slowly moved over to gourds and have a nice welded rack made by his son t...

That's good to hear Joe, What do you keep in em. Any bass or catfish? All the tanks I can see around appear full to the brim now and I believe they looked that way back in January as well. They have been mostly full since January of this year. I have one tank in the middle of a pasture that I clean...

Hey Matt,
Finally, all of our stock tanks are running around.

All of my stock tanks went dry in 2009 and I lost all my fish.
Filled up in 2010 and I restocked.
Almost went dry in 2011 but I kept enough water in it to keep fish alive from water well.
They are doing well now!

One other possibility is they have been displaced by the extreme weather we have had here in Central Texas. I had a major influx here last week of 8-10 pair that I assume came from someone's damaged or destroyed colony. The reason I think they were displaced is because all the males are ASY birds. T...

Congratulations!! First on the babies, second on the nice pictures! Our first few have fledged here in Central Texas over the weekend also. Will try to get some pictures of ours today. There is a large pecan tree in my front yard where the tallest limbs are dead and it's been a favorite "jumpin...

Went out to feed the cows this morning and there are lots of fresh faces sitting on the rack and a few in nearby tree tops. I noticed lots of activity around rack 1 and 2 the last few days. Based on nest checks, I knew it was getting close for the first 4 gourds. Perfect timing too!!! We are suppose...

Hate to hear the news Steve. An interesting and disturbing observation at my colony just now. I went out to check on a trap I have on a gourd with start of EHS nest and noticed a lot more birds here now and my gourds without nests seem to be filling up all of a sudden. I know I have babies ready to ...

Mostly clear and sun shining this morning with temps in upper 60's. Looked out a little after daylight this morning and the Martins were already making breakfast runs for the kids! It's almost 8am now and the colony is very active this morning! Shouldn't be too long until my first batch of babies ta...

Same here in CenTex. 20+ inches in last 4-5 weeks. Rained 3.1" Saturday night. Rained 4.5" today but the heavy stuff has just passed - it's been raining almost 8 hours straight. At least most of the rainy days haven't rained all day or the rain was overnight so the Martins are able to feed...

Hey there Joe, I guess a long-time martin landlord like yourself has seen these issues before. BW What a long strange trip it's been.... I must confess that until I found this website around 2005, I was of the "ignorance is bliss" group. Until that time when I installed my first managable...

Greetings, It's been raining off and on for a good while here. Yesterday it started before dawn and continued until late afternoon. The Martins took advantage of the break and I watched them making dinner runs for the babies. I was starting to worry as a have pinkies from newborn to 12 days in 20+ g...

My neighbor has a perfect site with a 3 story 18 room Heath with round holes. It's unmanaged and stays up year round. She has 2 pair of Martins this season and the rest are full time EHS hotel rooms. If you offer better housing that the Martins feel safer using, you will probably steal quite a few f...

Look up Gimp (Gnu Image Manipulation Program).

It's a shareware photo manipulation program that works well for sizing, cropping and editing photos.
I have the Microsoft stuff and Photoshop but use GIMP 98 percent of the time.

You are pretty far North.
I would give it a while as subbies just hit my colony here in Central Texas about 10 days ago.

Yep, the hawks will hit them.
I learned to put my decoys on the part of the rack that lowers for nest checks.
Makes them easy to strighten up during nest checks.

I have to straighten mine up a few times a year.