Purple Martin Forum

I use 3/8 aluminum rods, I tried bamboo, I tried the green garden stakes. I got them 6FT long shipped by Troyer.

Thanks guys, a scarecrow might be in my future, I do like the scare them with an underpowered pellet gun idea, if I could get my hands on one. My crow decoy went up yesterday on top of a 10 FT tube that I could move around, and a pigeon decoy got hit(I didn't see it). I'll keep ya posted how it goes.

Seems like every 3rd day the hawk shows up. If he lands on the racks the horn will scare him, but the other day he had a martin in his grips and the horn did nothing. I just got a big crow decoy I'll be putting up somehow, hopefully that will slow him down some.

Here I am in the mornings trying to protect the martins, my 3 racks to the right are full, the one all the way to the left has about 3 nests. I think I have to cut some trees down to help that one.

that is some nice set up, I can't stop staring at the picture
pat

OK I see, that would be hard to track with more then one pair.
thanks Tim

pat

Thanks I'm feeling pretty jazzed about the whole deal. Two of them wouldn't have hatched had I not moved them from the odd gourd they were laid in. Makes me wonder about all the unmanaged housing out there and how many eggs are lost for various reasons that can be helped just by being able to lower...

Karen I see you have the blaine, you do know troyer has single traps for there gourds right? I have both and when a sparrow shows interest in a gourd I put the trap in and monitor it, if I leave the house I remove that trap so I don't catch a martin and not be around to free it.
good luck!

pat

is that not a heath house?

double post

This is the best news I heard all day!!

Looks like Hugh has a new toy! great shots.
Will there be a martin cam again this year?

Thanks for the update, maybe I'll calm down now and stop staring at the gourd racks.



pat

Well I added to my site, I got a K24 rack, that is a dream rack. I'm thinking maybe I'm moving too fast so I put only 14 gourds on it, when needed I'll add the other 10. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to spin the winch with my cordless drill (sounds lazy but it's part of the fun). Good luck ...

I found some food grade silicon 3/8 grommets to try, there is not much lip
on the gourd to play around with so I just got a drill and reamed it out some, it was a tight fit so I lubed the grommets and the rod to get them on.
Time will tell if this going to last.


pat

I just looked at my one season old troyer horizontals and they all have gaps under the rod, I'm thinking if we could find a good silicone grommet we would just have to drill out the plastic rod holes. Like Lewis is doing but with a better grommet, I'm going to start searching

best yet from the cove, any idea how many fledged?

That is a great clip, what did you use to edit it?
thanks,
pat

Jose thanks for the info, I do see bats around, this looks like something fun to try.

did you make that?