Purple Martins in Tree Swallow/Bluebird house

barbiejoe · Tue Jul 03, 2018 1:53 pm

I have 12 gourds, ten have families in them. Two empty. Even so, one pair chose to nest in a gourd that is on a post 5 feet above the ground. It is situated to attract bluebirds or tree swallows so they won't bother the martins. This year it was empty and the PM family used it. It had four eggs and they did hatch. There is no side port on it, so I have mostly left them alone, as it is dark and I don't want to bother them.
I just thought it was odd. The two empty PM gourds are quite usable. Maybe this couple had a disagreement with the rest of the colony.!!
It has been a good season. Barbiejoe

Dave Duit · Tue Jul 03, 2018 5:19 pm

I have heard of this happening in other colonies that have tree swallow boxes. It might be a sign that you may want to consider expanding the colony by adding additional gourds or housing. Best of luck.

Dave Reynolds · Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:49 am

I have had the same thing here.. When the visiting Martins came , they went straight to the single gourd 6 feet off the ground and didn't even look at the 14 gourds on a gourd rack 30 feet away. Maybe it was because to the Tree Swallows had that gourd already, and they were just looking around..

Dave

Doug Martin - PA · Wed Jul 11, 2018 2:24 pm

I also have Martins in a gourd on a shepherd hook at my garden. It was there for Tree Swallows but they did not nest this year.

There have been many years Martins have nested 5ft off the ground in gourds at my site. They have even kicked Tree Swallows out a few times from their gourd prior. Maybe that's why I don't have any tree swallows now. My site is full each year but 45 pairs is plenty for me.

Doug

Carlton · Sat Dec 15, 2018 11:14 am

I have 7 84" tall shepherd's hooks, with predator guards 4 ft. above the ground, Excluder gourds here beside my lake. This will be the 4th year. Last year 4 of the 7 had active nests and fledged their young successfully. The gourds all face a small lake and all sit in a mowed lawn area just a very few feet from the water. We do have raccoons here but I have never seen a snake. The predator guards seem to be working. I use the inverted stovepipe style guard with a fair amount of movement to it. This started as an experiment to see if it was possible to attract purple martins to such housing here in South Florida. We have A LOT of ponds and lakes down here but almost all have HOA's that might object to a 12 -16 foot tall pole for martins. I thought that if martins got used to successfully nesting in such housing as mine that more people here might be able to host purple martins. We do not have tree swallows here nor do we have many house sparrows. There are plenty of starlings though. I use the Modified Excluder entrance with the porch mounted nearly flush with the bottom of the entrance hole. Of course the taller poles with houses or gourds are THE BEST but if you are not able to erect them then this method with the shepherd's hooks may be possible to you. I would face the gourds towards the water even if that makes it harder for you to watch the action. Also, being close to the water's edge MAY lessen the chance of a house cat attack on the martins coming to the gourds.

lynnh · Mon Dec 17, 2018 8:57 am

i've got 13 shepherds hook style Gourds set up in a 20 foot diameter circle they are anywhere from 4 feet to 7 feet off the ground all of them were occupied and successfully fledge the young Martin's in 2018.

Dave Duit · Mon Dec 17, 2018 9:06 am

Hi lynn,
Good point on the height of martin housing. In the old days, people use to think the houses and gourds needed to be insanely high 18-25 feet. I can touch the bottom of my gourds on the rack at my location and it is good to see that your martins don't mind the lower heights too.

lynnh · Wed Dec 19, 2018 7:49 pm

Hey Dave , It all started when a pair took over a bluebird/Treeswallow gourd in 2016. They returned in 2017 Took over that same gourd later in the season when everything was pretty well full up everywhere else we still had a lot of females both ASY and SY looking for a place to Nest of course I couldn't turn them away so I just started putting up shepherds hooks and gourds as needed . we ended up with 13 in all and they all surround this small mud hole of a pond . Now for record-keeping purposes I called them my pond 13 or if you will P – 13 !:-)

Dave Duit · Thu Dec 20, 2018 11:08 am

That is such a good story. It is fun to hear how others colonies started and the different set ups of martin housing. On a side note, I'll be attending the Kalona Purple Martin Workshop and Seminar again this year. See you there. I'm not sure who our speaker will be for the event.