Southern Indiana - First Visitors

[Bkhollan]

So I had multiple visitors today. The first picture is when just one was landed with his head in the entrance, the rest were gliding overhead at the time. The second is a different male sitting on the other end gourd. I zoomed in as far as I could, but I didn't want to scare them off by approaching them.

They left and came back a couple different times over the course of about 2 hours. A couple times, it was just three males and other times it was what I think was 4 males and either 2 females or 2 subadult males. They were flying above me, but they are so fast I couldn't tell much more than they had different color "bellies" than the others that was greyish.

The males kept landing on the gourd landing and fighting over who got to go in the houses facing the left in the pictures on each pole. They'd fly over to another one, but then go back trying to get the end gourds so they could go in.

I was watching in the evening, but I don't think any ended up staying in the houses overnight.

Should I keep the decoys up or should I take them down?

[deancamp]

I would keep your decoys up unless you can tell they are negatively effecting the visiting Martins. It doesn't sound like they are bothered by them to me. Good to hear about all the visitors, be persistent even if none of these stay. You never know when your "colony starter" might show up.

[flyin-lowe]

Decoys are great for a distraction when hawks attack. Leave them up. On several occasions over the years I have seen a hawk come crashing into a decoy while the others get away. They go for the slowest moving target most of the time. It doesn't hurt to relocate them a little during the season in case the hawks start to learn they are not real.