Purple Martin Forum

I just saw this nice article in the local news about a Washington IL landlord and the effort of fellow enthusiasts to help out with his colony. http://www.pjstar.com/article/20150621/NEWS/150629906

Brian, I have a Natureline pole and gourds with the crescent entrances w/ porches too. As Matt said, I too purchased based on price and have replaced 6 of the 16 gourds with Troyers. We are at full capacity this year again and have had a few (3 or 4) birds (both male and female) struggle to enter an...

Watch for them to start bringing green leaves to the nest. That's the first sign egg laying is going to start.

Bob, We had an male show up and spend the morning on our gourd rack on April 7th. Thought it was one of ours from last year. When I got home from work, he was gone and I haven't seen a martin since. We had 3 pairs last year, 2 pairs the year before. I know of another colony a few miles from me that ...

Nope. Doesn't fit. Not without some modification.

Mary, I highly recommend the Universal Sparrow trap sold through the PMCA. I have 2 that I use in a plastic 12 room trio house that is like a magnet for sparrows and starlings. I've taped up 5 holes on each side and have placed one trap on each side in the open hole. I have had both traps full almos...

We have an ASY pair that have been here for about 15 days now and another ASY female that showed up 2 days ago and is really intent on wooing the male. Of course, the other female is having a hissy fit. Can't wait for the SYs to start showing up.

I just took my finger and smeared mud around the crescent hole and on the porches, just enough to turn the white, beige. I found out they are messy when they nest and the theory is they want to nest where others have nested before. Nice, new, white gourds means nobody has lived there before. As I sa...

Someone on this forum told me to smear mud around the openings of my gourds to make them looked "lived-in". Did it last year and ended up with 2 pairs. Can't say it's helped this year. Only have 1 ASY male staying part time this year so far. Keep the faith.

Yes, Craig, I have seen them. In the evening, I've seen the grass move as they scurry in their runs. Sometimes, you can kick them out of the run and disorient them. The ones I have in my yard are a little bigger than a mouse, have short rounded heads and stubby tails. I tried to catch them with snap...

Craig, From the description of the runs, I'd say they're voles. We get them in our yard here in Illinois all the time. I have had success getting rid of them using smoke bombs called "The Giant Destroyer." Simply light the fuse, shove down in their hole and cover best you can with dirt. Th...

Doug, I made the perches myself using 3 3/16" straight rods, a piece of thread rod (1/4 " I think) and some washers and nuts. Bend the straight rods at about a 45 degree angle and spot weld them to one of the large washers. Spot weld the other washer on top. Kinda tricky. There is actually...

Sitting here waiting for the snow to melt, I thought I'd try to upload some pictures from last year.

I had a real problem with sparrows last year trying to nest in our gourds. We have Natureline gourds with SREH openings and one troyer horizontal with an SREH entrance. Most of the sparrows I took care of with my pellet gun. I use the door traps on our bluebird houses and they work very well. We als...

Matt, Thanks! Yeah, lucky for him (or her) I had the scope on 9X. Thought at first it was a mutant HSP, but decided to ID them first. Don and Danielle, Everything I could find about the EUTS that was published said pretty much what you guys did. Thanks for verifying. You can't always believe everyth...

We have had a pair of Eurasian Tree sparrows frequenting our bird feeder for the last 2 weeks. They look just like male HSP, but are smaller and have a distinct black patch on their cheek. My bird book (and the internet) say they are concentrated in and around the St. Louis area and in parts of Miss...

Thanks Kathy and Veronica. We feel very blessed that 2 pairs decided to call our site home. They sure are fun to have around. We can't wait 'til next spring. Harley, I have a couple of trees that I am going to remove this fall to try to open up our backyard a little more. I, like Kathy, had constant...

Our second and last nest fledged about 6 days ago. This was a renest and only 3 of the 5 eggs hatched. All 3 fledged. Mom and 2 of the babies have been gone for 3 days now. Dad still brings the third back every night. The other nest had 5 eggs, all of which hatched. One died the first week and a sec...

Update: The ASY/SY pair has renested in an adjacent gourd. I checked last night and she has laid 2 eggs in the last two days. He has been bringing green leaves. The other nest was abandonded and the egg was covered with leaves and other nest material. The other pair's 5 eggs are due to hatch this we...

You might try fox urine. I have a friend that uses it to keep the raccoons out of his sweet corn patch. He says it works.