Purple Martin Forum

I don't know the answer to your question. I just want to chime in, about two things: One, I certainly hope the mods of the fb forum adjust their settings, or review their policy, to allow sharing information about sparrow and starling control. Invasive pest species are the major threat to native cav...

Just curious since this post has been up for a bit-- how did you do? Did they stay?

What a terrible experience, for you and the martins, sorry to hear it. I've noticed in my colonies it's not uncommon to get one or two gourds all of a sudden overrun by massive numbers of mites. The mites crawl out, looking to get to other birds and gourds. I'm not sure why it's just one of many gou...

I'd say that cleaning nests out of fledged gourds is a good practice. You'll clean out any parasites, which will be questing and migrating to other cavities with their usual hosts gone. I suppose it is worth throwing in a handful of clean bedding. Probably not necessary to put bedding in there, but ...

article is here, I think you get one article for free: https://www.telegraphherald.com/news/tri-state/article_aea93cda-19be-11ee-a5c4-83460143b5a9.html For what it's worth, today I worked together with the bander who made the critical comment about handling martins and nests. He was fine to work wit...

Thanks for the reply, Rob--that's the info I'm looking for, whether anybody has ever heard of someone prosecuted for handling martins and doing nest changes--which certainly appear to be a violation of the written language of MBTA. I've never heard of it happening, and I'm not too concerned with pot...

Good question, Brent. I think under a strict reading of the MBTA, just about any contact you have with a wild bird is illegal. There's probably a reasonability standard that the feds are going by, when they exercise discretion in what they prosecute. This probably helps them weed out the busybody ti...

Thanks for the reply Phil. By my reading of the MBTA, just keeping and reporting data is no defense against the violation of handling purple martins and their nests. Claiming to be involved in "research" but not having a permit is no defense either. By my reading, you have to have a licens...

A small publication depicted a PUMA landlord holding a martin chick while doing a nest change. A licensed bander reached out to the LL depicted in the article. The bander told the LL that it is illegal to handle purple martins or their nests under the MBTA, and as a license-holder the bird bander is...