Hello! I’m New to the forum. My dad and I have taken over my grandpas Martin colony in central Wisconsin. We have two homemade wood houses and a homemade guard rack that have super gourds. All compartments are round holes with the exception of two THG With Conley ll we put up last week under one of the houses. We try to control starlings with trapping and shooting but they are still a problem. Just today an ASY male entered Conley ll gourd with no problem so that was encouraging. Wondering if SREH plates would be the easiest option to put over round holes? And if so do I have to worry about wing entrapment with the troyer Conley ll plates? And should we change them at the beginning of next year and hope they accept them? Or try to do it still before SY birds come?
We had 20 pair last year. Sorry for all the questions!
Thanks, Tom
Switching round holes to SREH
Sometimes the plates are hard to adapt over the round hole and or the hole needs to be enlarged as some SREH are wider than the round holes. It is easier in most cases to adapt a tunnel that has the SREH and wing entrapment guard already in place over the super gourds. If you can do the mods now one by one without disturbing the existing birds I would go for it. Not much point attracting martins to watch them be killed by starlings, and the peace of mind knowing the martins are safer is well worth it.