Natural Gourds cracking for my TS's

[Jones4381]

Went ahead and ordered 3 SuperGourds 1.5" openings to replace some naturals that are cracking. I've had TS each year and curious if others have had success with these plastics? I'm keeping them in the same locations that the tree swallows have nested before to stay out of my racks for the PM's. They are 30, 50 and 100 feet away in a strait line from the main rack. I've got another TS/BB gourd 300 feet away hoping for a second TS pair. Good luck to everyone this year. They nested 30 feet away in 21' and 100 feet away in 22'. zero in the 50 feet away and 100 yard solo in middle of field.

[Dave Reynolds]

...Jones4381 ... Sorry,, I don’t have any of those gourds.. May be other Landlords will answer your question.. By the way.. Nice photo of a Tree Swallow... Good Luck this year’’’

Dave

[C.C.Martins]

Jones,
Sadly we do not have tree swallows but I have used those gourds for years. They are a good gourd, martins like them.
Ps: one thing iv done for the excluder and super gourds is scour the inside to above the porch with a dremmel, light scrapes but a bunch of them. Seems to hold nesting material in place and gives martin chicks purchase. I don't know if its necessary if one pre nests but read it may prevent splay leg....I believe that affliction is more common in aluminum houses. Probably not necessary.
Tom

[Habsboy]

Have 3 of these gourds. placed them in the perimeter of my Martin rack a few yrs back since i was having a problem with TS, did the trick and they are extremely sturdy. funny thing I placed them out and the tree swallows didnt bother last year BUT the house wren and Eastern Bluebird really liked them. This gourd has a smaller entrance and I dont know if Martins would try (Ive never seen them). again I thinks its a good investment if you are trying to keep others away from youre Martin colony and they are good and sturdy

[jhcox]

I have several of these gourds with the crescent entrance My PM love them lots of room inside. I also have 2 of these gourds with round hole entrances. I placed them about 30 to 40 feet on either side of my PM racks and once the TS start a nest in them they will not let any other TS near my PM racks. I have an abundance of TS I usually have 12 to 15 clutches or more per year. I also have a BB trail of about 15 BB boxes the BB will have about 20 clutches per year. The black capped chickadees and Titmouse like the BB boxes as well. I put nesting trays 4 on the front porch and 3 on the back porch which the doves and the ruby throated finches love to use. Its never boring at the house there is always some type of birds building nest or hatching out all the time its cool to watch. I added 4 wooden cups under the eves of the front porch trying to get barn swallows to nest no luck yet. Good Luck everyone.

JHCox Heiskell TN

[Jones4381]

Thank you all for the replies and additional ideas. I look forward to putting these out next month and giving the tree's a bit more room and shelter inside as the naturals were very small and decaying . Don't know if TS's can splay but I'll mark em up a bit to help. I never prenested with the TS because I couldn't due to no access ports.
Funny as I was looking at morning dove nest on internet yesterday as they love the eave under the front porch...may put out some of those nest more secure too. Conservationist are such cool people imo. No bat house Jhcox? ...sounds like you have a wonderful habitat going on. Thanks again and looking forward to any others that wish to share their experiences.

ps. I'm going to add some cups down at my barn for the BS's and offer that up too after this share by Mr. Cox. I've had a wood duck box in my small 1/2 acre pond for the last 5 years but no takers...I was reading yesterday that it should face S or W and like a dummy I got it facing N/E...will move that once it warms to the other side of pond facing the right way.

[jhcox]

Hey Jones I did try the bat house for several years but never had any bats take to it. I love out in the country and really only see 1 or 2 many during the long summer nights right at dusk. I hope you can get those BS in your barn I love seeing them with their long tails swooping around. I’ve tried for years without success. But the nest trays and cups are out there should they decide to.

[Jones4381]

Hey Jones I did try the bat house for several years but never had any bats take to it. I love out in the country and really only see 1 or 2 many during the long summer nights right at dusk. I hope you can get those BS in your barn I love seeing them with their long tails swooping around. I’ve tried for years without success. But the nest trays and cups are out there should they decide to.

Thanks Cox, I have several bats around my night pole light and not for sure they need a roosting spot but thought it would be cool to put it up on the barn just in case. Looking forward to seeing if I can get some Barn Swallows. You know years ago i had alot of bird droppings inside the barn on a cross beam directly below...I wasn't into it back then but I'm guessing it was probably BS's. I saw a very large Black snake a few years ago up on one of the rafters and haven't seen any new droppings the last years since seeing that rather large snake....you all probably thinking like me...anyway thought I'd put up a few nest as it's been at least 5+ years since then. Good luck to you too!

[Birdiegirl]

Well since the martins aren't here yet, I'll have to chime on the bats

When I removed my houses and gourds and hauled them to the barn for storage last October, I found bat guano in one of the plastic gourds. Quite a bit, actually. The guano hadn't been there in late August (when we'd removed all the nesting material)- so I suspect there was a bat using the empty gourd as a night or feeding roost during a few early fall nights. Our setups are pretty close to a very bright security light that draws in a lot of insects, so it would be a nice spot.

Confession- I'm a bit of a bat nerd (did my master's work on bats), so I thought it was pretty cool! I immediately searched the forum to see if anyone else had experienced bats in their martin housing, but didn't find much the way I searched. I do seem to recall a post from someone with a wooden martin house/wooden pole that had seen bats emerge from the wooden support system/pole (not from inside the actual compartments).

Bats sure can use our help too. Houses don't seem to work all that well, unfortunately- but I know of a few folks that have had success when a bat colony has been excluded from a home/building.

[C.C.Martins]

Laura,
Don't want to hijack the thread Jones started BUT since bats are very cool, there is a forum for bats too. Some of the members here are on it. Perhaps just maybe you could have a bat house? I wanted to do that as well, but I was stopped in my tracks by my one and only.
One guy I remember made a rocket bat house and sent a video of them emerging in the afternoon.
Just an idea, I love bats and yes they can use the help.
Tom

[randyM]

Jones 4381,

I have about 120 individual plastic gourds and various wooden houses up for Tree Swallows, each about 30 yards apart along fence lines on my property. Gourds are a mix of Bo-9's, original Bo's, and Heath. TS don't seem to prefer one type over the other, as I have about 90% occupancy each year (including an occasional bluebird and house wren). I've never put pre-nesting material in any TS cavities as they typically build a very robust nest on their own. However, I might occasionally add some dry grass to a poorly built nest (usually an inexperienced late nesting young pair) during my weekly nest checks after the full clutch is laid. I once had a TS pair nest in a Super Gourd in the midst of my Martin colony. The female laid 5 eggs and all hatched, but 3 of the young appeared to die of hypothermia inside the gourd but outside the nest bowl at about six-seven days of age before being fully feathered. I've also had another pair of TS nest in a Super Gourd with no issues. However, I believe Super Gourds might be a bit too roomy for TS and when the young are old enough to wander from the feather-lined nest bowl might they not be able to find their way back to the warmth of the nest bowl. Young martins of the same age are bigger and stronger and are more likely to make it back to their nest bowl if they wander before being fully feathered. In over ten years of monitoring nests I've had few if any young TS die of hypothermia in the smaller plastic gourds, however I've had similar occasional losses to hypothermia in some of my larger wooden boxes (8" x 10"). So in my opinion, smaller gourds might be a better option in the northern part of TS nesting range to lower the possibility of hypothermia in young if looking to attract nesting Tree Swallows.

I also have about 20 nesting barn swallows and 40 nesting cliff swallows at my site. I leave the doors open on my vacant chicken coop and a few other small outbuildings and the barn swallows just build nests on the exposed rafters. The cliff swallows build their mud nests under the eaves of my house and a few of the out buildings. There are also dozens of nesting bank swallows and a few rough-winged swallows using the exposed cut-banks on the lake near my house. After my martins leave for the season in last August for a few weeks I have hundreds of the other 5 swallow species landing on all the perch rods I have around my colony for the martins. The only American swallow not nesting at my site is the violet green swallow....just not located far enough west for that visitor I guess .

Randy

[Jones4381]

Thanks Randy!

I left up 2 naturals (about 1/4 the size of the supergourd) and replaced 2 with the supergourds in that row. I was curious to the variance in size and it will be interesting to see which they go to. I used 1 in an isolated spot for wren/BB/TS/ etc...

Thanks for the information as this helps with some questions I'll have down the road. Great description of your ecosystem and gave a great visualization of your commitment and success. My bat house arrived yesterday so I'm on a ladder today to hang on the S side of my 30x30 barn about 15-18 feet up.

on a side not I didn't think i had any wood duck activity in my duck house in the pond (facing N/E) so I moved it to other side of pond facing S/W. To my surprise when I cleaned it out there was alot of feathers and old egg parts in the box. Guess they had nested there. Anyway to late as it's been moved.

Thanks again to everyone for their imput as it's helped fuel the fire and make better descisions hopefully...