Purple Martin Forum

Not an expert by any means, but I've always used bleach to clean my houses and gourds and it doesn't seem to bother my tenants. Any remnant of bleach left after thorough rinsing is probably broken down after exposure to UV sunlight for a day or two. It could be that they are not sticking around just...

I had four stubbies show up along with three adults at my rack this morning.

First Activity last year was April 6 and 2018 is 3 weeks earlier. I just opened the entrances two days ago and this morning three very vocal adult males were arguing over the same south facing gourd. Update: 3/13/2018 @0900; 6 martins on site this morning, 4 are either female or subbies. I can't tel...

Great news, Emil. I am having the same experience here. One nest remaining, earliest possible fledge day is Aug. 8th. A few hot days near 100 recently, but cooling this week to the mid 90's. I have only 8 houses (4 quad pods and 4 gourds), but counted 42 purple martins on the house and power lines a...

This is my second year as a landlord (after 3 unsuccessful years). This year with 8 pods/gourds, I had 7 nesting pairs, 32 eggs, 28 hatched and fledged between Jun 4th – 19th. (only 7 fledglings from 1 pair last year.) While I would have thought that most of my Martins would have moved onto the Roos...

Added a photo to the post above

Louise,

I use 90% shade cloth. I want to be sure the babies don't get any sun that could burn them. Here is a link to the site where I purchased a roll. http://www.amazon.com/Keystone-Fabrics- ... roduct_top

Yes, how well I know! The heat was my main concern as well. Last year we had 100 degree days in early June. I will be hanging shade cloth also as I did last year. Ordered another 2,000 mealworms (used 5,000 so far this year). Another thing that I have done is to remove the plastic caps from the gour...

I posted an UPDATE today to a post I made 6/20 after my last pair of baby martins had fledged and the site appeared to be abandoned. "They are still returning at night (counted 17 yesterday) and one of the nests is being re-used. I had suspended nest checks after the pair fledged, but found 2 e...

My martin babies began fledging June 4th and the last 2 fledged yesterday June 19. They returned last night and spent the night in their housing, but not one in sight at 4:00 PM this evening. 4 eggs failed to hatch this year, but the 28 that did all survived and fledged. I'm thankful for that. It su...

Following up the the link given above. Since time is of the essense, I wanted to give the link ASAP. These folks are wonderful. I have taken several animals/birds (ie; blind feral kitten, white wing dove, house wren stuck to glue trap, etc) to them and they have never dissapointed me. I donate month...

Last year, I had one nesting pair and five fledged (from 5 eggs). This year all eight apartments/gourds were claimed and seven had eggs (28 of 32 eggs hatched). The remaining nest is picture perfect, but no eggs. It has been 2 weeks since the last baby hatched, so I doubt the other 4 eggs are viable...

Thanks for that info, Anthony, I'll definitely check that out. I thought that there must be someplace locally that they gather, but never knew where. I saw a group skimming the San Antonio River in the new stretch near the Pearl Brewery last summer. That was pretty neat.

I, agree with you Toy... Glue traps should be outlawed. Here in the San Antonio hill country we have a scorpion problem from time to time. A few years ago, I set out a glue trap in my garage near the door that comes into the house. I caught a gecko and a wren that was chasing it. The wren was weak a...

In the past, I tried to feed mealworms to my martins, by placing them on the porches, but many would crawl off and fall to the ground before I could even raise the houses back into position and more would fall off before the Martins returned. So yesterday I decided to try something different. I used...

Winger,

I have the Heritage Quad Pods with the SREH and internal baffels installed. My martins have no problem with either. All pods have eggs at this time. My Troyer gourds filled up first, though.

ND

The first year I put up 4 Heritage Farms Quad Pods and there were no takers. Second year I added 4 Troyer gourds (one below each pod) and again had no takers. Third year, last year, I had one pair set up housekeeping in a gourd and fledged 5 young'uns (from 5 eggs). This year, Mr Martin returned on ...

A very interesting topic on which bedding is best to provide the Martins. I use "aged" cedar chips (from a bail that has sat in the garage for a years "airing out". I read with interest the article posted via link by Mark. I may have read it previously, but the re-read was very u...

this is a real problem for me. Or.. well... it could have been, but I decided a few years back not to make war on the English (or common house) sparrow because my eye sight is simply not good enough at 30 yards to distinguish the many types of sparrows we have in the area. I just lower my houses eve...