What counts as a purple martin nest?

[Diane Porter]

Today I found (yay!) one egg in a gourd and three eggs in another. The other six eggless gourds vary in their condition from a little poop and three little straws to a very substantial nest with enough green leaves to make a salad out of. Each gourd has a depression in the material at the back that has clearly been made by birds.

On my reporting form, how much of a nest does there need to be to call it a nest? Or do there need to be eggs for it to be a nest?

[DebA]

Hi Diane,
Not sure if I am right and what they want but here is what I do. I do not count the poo/few straws as a nest. I would if they made their indention brought in green leaves and laid some eggs. The others that you describe with twigs/indentions/leaves I do count as a martin nest.
Deb

[~Ray~Gingerich]

The problem with counting nests is that we put nesting materials in the gourds and houses, some martins add very little to that except a few green leaves and then you have some that build nests and never lay eggs in them. So what I do on my sheets is to not count it until there are eggs in the nest, then I go back to the previous check and enter the information for pm nest.

[AvianStewardess]

On the ones that have just a few twigs, I mark a "?" on my sheet so I know for the next check to see if there was progress on that questionable compartment. Poop don't count.

[Diane Porter]

Thanks for the good advice. All helpful, and I especially like Avian Stewardess's suggestion.