Purple Martin Forum

The American crow is a learning bird, they learn from trial and error and they learn by watching other flock members. Bastrop has a healthy population of these birds and it has a number of thriving martin colonies. It is possible that the crows here have not learned that the martin colonies are a po...

On 3/31/14, I drove past the residence I spoke of in my previous response. It appears that they use two unmodified S&K BH12 houses. Each house has the standard 12 6X6 compartments with the standard starling resistant holes. The two houses are on separate poles near the back fence but not on it. ...

Oh, you did not quite get me, I that you meant that the reports were gone. As in, someone that was in favor of S&S had destroyed all the reports.

Chriscreole, WOW, that is one BIG FALCON. I will have to ck. raptor site. Very interesting. He is pretty, but not when he is hunting your Martins. While they share some of the same shape and features of falcons such as the peregrine, gyrfalcon and merlin, caracaras are really there own separate gro...

Cliff Swallows are very active in underpasses all over Central Texas. I believe in this part of Texas they are the most common swallow nesting in underpasses. Although there are other swallows that do nest in underpasses. To get a %100 positive ID on a cliffie, I like to stand road over the underpas...

Like everyone here said that is a caracara. I've never heard of one perusing a bird in the air. They just don't have the flight skills for that. The bird might nest raid, except for fact that the shape of a gourd or apartments would make that almost impossible a caracara. The only time I would see a...

Sorry to hear the coopers are catching your fledglings. I breaks my heart that this happens. I feel your pain and know I will probably experience this in the near future. Just hang in there and do the best you can. This is one of the tragedies and heartbreak of having martins. Can you stand out the...

I realize there is nothing I can do at this distance from the colony. It makes me wish I didn't have a colony because I feel so helpless to help protect these wonderful birds. Almost gave up with this hobby couple years ago and this year may do me in. Just wish I didn't care so much. I really hate ...

It's funny what sort of information "gets legs" in the world of public information and misinformation. (why did the video I liked not go viral, when that stupid gangum style video did?) I suppose if you could start a rummer "martins are good at consuming the flying termite", then...

Hi Bulldog, In my area of Florida, sparrows are far less numerous, than they were 10 years ago. Some reports say that House finches drive House Sparrows out of an area, but I have never seen a finch in my yard. I have both House Sparrows and House Finches in the vicinity of my trailer and it doesn'...

I think the best solution (from a wildlife management point of view) was KathyF's solution where she found the attack path taken by the hawk and then placed her feeders between the hawk's path and the martin house. She posted about it at http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/03/protecting-your-purple...

I went out for breakfast with my cousin and her fiance in Bastrop. Afterwords, we all stopped at a rummage sale. Of course I did not have my binoculars. There was a house that backed to an undeveloped lot. It's backyard privacy fence was about 150 ft from the main road. Attached to the fence was one...

One night I got the scare of my life - I was walking across bridge over a wide creek near my home in a very small town (French Creek, Venango PA - mapped by George Washington when he was doing surveyor work). I heard two odd cries and then - RIGHT behind my head - two loud SNAPs! I headed home kind...

Humm, you know anyone with a digital camara? I'm sure we would all like to see the nest with the big eggs.

Glue traps are very dangerous if you have Purple Martins or other native cavity nesters on site. If any bird gets caught in these, they will not survive. The glue will be stuck on their feathers and impossible to get off. That reminds me of the time when a was doing triage on a Carolina wren. I did...

See this POST

I was considering my tipping point thread a more of a why would you kill S&S. I was interpreting the title of this thread to mean "how to you preform the action?". Or possibility it could mean, "How can you force yourself to preform the action?". A third possibility could mea...

Sorry if I disturbed anyone. I do feel that this tread was leading in that direction. There have been previous responses iasking about cervical dislocation and chest compression I think this whole topic should have a warning and possibility a more informative name such as "Starling/HOSP control...

I euthanize them immediately in my hand, but have never been absolutely sure of the most effective and easiest technique. Maybe someone can clarify. When you said easy, did you mean easy as in, "it is easy to avoid mistakes and verify that the euthanasia was done correctly"? Or, did you m...

i even brought a pair in my house in nesting boxes, as they would have died to, we had temps in the 20s- 30s, So the birds were inside of a nesting box and the box was inside your house. Was the nesting box a gourd? was it a multi unit birdhouse? Did you shut up the nesting box so they could not ge...