Purple Martin Forum

Steve - I am so excited to see this posted here - I have the original prototype of this house at my site! I stumbled across Mel in my travels in Amish country, and asked if he would customize a purple martin house for me. I was super excited when he said yes, and the following year he asked if I wou...

Before they were offered by the PMCA I ordered some "Pine Straw" online and hated it. It was long, very brittle, and cut my hands to pieces when I used it. I stick with the soft white pine needles and the birds love them. When I do nest checks, I use weeping willow leaves to replace green ...

Ummm, best invention ever! Absolutely YES!

My resolution is to continue the promotion of purple martins in my other hobby - the world of rabbits shows....one by one they are converting to purple martin enthusiasts!

Sparky -

So I am guilty of not keeping up on Forum upgrades....apparently Private Messages are not working. If you email me at mingjo@aol.com I can email you her contact information.

John

Sparky - I have a friend who raises and shows rabbits with me, and who is a young school teacher with an interest in purple martins that lives in Texas, wonderful family and extremely passionate about everything that she and her family do, I will private message you her contact information. It may b...

Hi All - I have two natural gourds and two super gourds that I would like to add to my set-up. Because of a health issue I was unable to get the task done until well now. Two questions - Can I add 4 gourds to an active housing unit - nest building, green leaves state. Doing nest check tomorrow - but...

Mark -

Central Ohio just east of Columbus here - hosted 37 pairs last year, and I have 45 birds back so far

We are heading back into the 70's this weekend, and I think we will see another wave mid-late next week.

JohnM

Sharon - It sounds very promising - I would suspect he is out looking for company. My founding male spent the first year with me as a SY, but was unable to attract a mate. He returned the second year as a full purple ASY male, and helped to attract 7 other birds to my site (3 pairs & 2 extra mal...

Central Ohio here - 18 miles east of Columbus, having been picking up new birds each day, I suspect the gates will open wide this weekend if we hit the projected 70 they are predicting. I would open up your colony, and continue to ensure to keep out starlings and sparrows if they are a problem. John M

Love it!

For the first time since I have been hosting purple martins, I had a group of first arrivals for the beginning of the season rather than a single bird. 3 ASY males and 1 ASY female are all safe and sound tonight. It was a few days later this year than in previous years, but luckily they didn't arriv...

David - In my early years of trying to attract martins - I was convinced they "could not" get into the SREH. All that they ever did was look in and could never seem to get into the entrance. Being the ever tinkering type landlord that I am, I switched to round holes on some of my housing. ...

David - It sounds like a T-14, if it is they are wonderful houses. If I were you - I would simply buy the Starling Resistant Entrance Hole (SREH) replacments - available in the PMCA shop, and convert the T14 from round hold to SREH, they are very inexpensive. I am also a big fan of SREH gourds - and...

The 2013 season here in central Ohio wasn't the greatest - cool weather, lot's of rain, etc. I must have wanted to put it out of my mind - I realized today when I pulled out my MartinWatch data sheets, that I had not finalized and totalled out the 2013 form. Well, better late than never, so I spent ...

Hopefully he is one tough bird - luckily he is used to supplemental feeding - best of luck on your 2014 season.

JohnM

Hopefully he is one tough bird - luckily he is used to supplemental feeding - best of luck on your 2014 season.

JohnM

Beautiful site Dave! Good luck in 2014!

JohnM

Oh Crap! I was all set to congratulate Chickadee, and then I see her reply that her earliest previous arrival was March 31 and I've had earlier than that here in central Ohio! Now all I can do is stare out this darn window.....waiting! In all seriousness - congratulations on your new arrival, keep h...

Ron - Just watch where you purchase the "pine straw" from. I just threw a box away that I ordered on the internet (not PMCA). I use white pine and love it and I thought it would be the same. It was far from the same, it was long 6-7 hard needles that literally hurt to work with. I had to u...