Purple Martin Forum

2" SCH 80 for me too - my house must weigh close to 80 pounds and no issues at all.
It does sway in the wind - but never bends or breaks

I also had a female die mid-brood, and the male did stay and feed the remaining young. That particular nest had 6 young, and I did move 2 to another nest that had only 3 young that hatched the day before these ones. I know that's not the recommended course of action, but it worked for me. All the ba...

Agressive is good - he will keep the pests away!

The other martins will eventually fight their way in. Mine held his castle for 2 seasons before finally giving in

I had two separate instances of a male and female getting trapped in the SK Clinger tunnels last year. One time the male was wing entrapped - with a female trapped inside the house. The second time I had two birds stuck in the tunnel. Literally stuck - nearly could not get the dead female out of the...

Saw my first SY male yesterday in Saskatoon, and a single SY female this morning. With the nice weather coming up, I think we should see more and more this week. It can take a while to establish your colony - keep the sparrows out and use all the attraction techniques that you see on the web. I foun...

35 yards with a pellet gun is a stretch
Not saying it can't be done - just that it is really stretching the accuracy potential of most airguns to hit a quarter sized target at that distance

I have a few in my area - and they have never bothered my martins or housing at all. Looks like they may be big enough to have trouble getting in a 2" hole - though I cant say I have ever measured one up close.

There's no like button
Good news for us Canucks.
Can't wait!
Looks like nice weather all week so fingers crossed they show up here soon!

We live in Saskatoon and have a large ponderosa pine directly behind our house as well as a 80 acre wheat field. I have found that they pick up lots of 2-3" long pine needles and only a few pieces of what straw from the wheat field. That said, I have been adding a handful of 3-4" long cut ...

Well I thought I would update this one last time in case it helps someone else down the road. The female who was defending her nest successfully hatched 4 out of 5 eggs and both her and her partner have been feeding the chicks every few minutes or so. So in the end it all worked out. My lonely femal...

Awesome!
There is one band, a sliver one, on the birds left leg. She is a ASY female as far as I can tell. She lost her mate last weekend so hopefully she sticks around long enough for me to at least get the entire number from her. Hopefully she stays all summer!

One of the new settlers at my place is wearing some jewellry! My Question is how many numbers are there on a bird band? I have spent a few mornings trying to read all of the numbers and I think I have most of them now depending on how many there are altogether. I have the first four and the last fou...

Well, after a few days of instability, things are looking up. I decided to not transfer the eggs anywhere, and let nature do what it does. Here is what happened. In the weeks before I found the dead bird - I had one nesting pair on the left side of my house and one nesting pair on the right side of ...

Yes we are way up north (Canada) and yes there have been a couple of SY birds showing up in the past week or so. I suspect that he was in some sort of battle with another bird and got stuck. He was really wedged in there - I had to pull pretty hard to get him out.

I've had a lovely pair of ASY martins at my site for a month or so now. This morning the female laid egg #4 and things were looking very promising. When I got home from work today I found the male stuck half in and half out of the entrance hole ( he was dead ) and the female trapped inside. I don't ...

I don't know of any other houses near me. I have seen the houses on the highway too - there always seem to be lots of martins at Wilsons whenever I am there. My dad has an established colony in Silverspring right on the edge of the grasslands behind the zoo - and I believe that he has 4 or 5 pair ri...

My house is an A-16 style from Chuck Abare. So far so good. I think i will need porch dividers pretty soon though...

Adam I am in Willowgrove - where abouts are you?

Jeremy

Hey guys.
Just wanted to say hi!
Nice to see there are others from Saskatoon in here.
I am a second year landlord as well - last year we had one pair fledge 6 young. This year we have 2 pairs so far, and still waiting for some SY birds to show up.