Purple Martin Forum

Ray, I've had martins at this location since the mid 90's and have continued to add housing until I now have room for around 100 pair. The Nite Gard lights are mounted at about the same height as the housing on a perch pole near the row of housing poles. One light faces in each direction. I will use...

I have had four of these up for several years. They don't work at my house.

You might try this, Cut four pieces of cardboard the width of the 4x4 and about 2 feet long. Duct tape to the bottom of the 4x4. Dig your hole and put the cardboard taped end of the 4x4 in the hole and pour sackcrete in the hole use a level to plum the 4x4. When the sackcrete is dry, you should be a...

I purchased four of these and mounted them on a pole the same height of my gourd racks with one pointed in each direction. They did NOT keep the owls away. I couldn't tell it made any difference at all.

Question(s) which would likely require the least maintenance or have the longest life (Marauder or R7)?

Is the .22 less accurate than the .177?

I'm seeing the exact behavior you described at my sight. I had a failed hawk atack just before dark yesterday and had one of my asy males caught out of the air a couple of weeks back. I plan to add more decoys this weekend.

I agree completely. I've seen hawks grab a decoy several times at my place. All of mine are home made, most are cut from a treated piece of 2x4 or 2x6 lumber and painted. I used the pattern found in the pmca archives. You can carve a pretty decent looking decoy out of styrofoam with a steak knife bu...

Has anyone tried this .22 amo for S&S control? It is a very quiet "subsonic" round and is avertised at 710 feet per second.

Ken, I just a few miles west of you (just southwest of Greenville). I've seen as many as forty here in the evenings. Let me know if I can help. I have a number of extra gourds available if you need more. Good luck.....db

A few wraps of electric fence wire around a insulated sleeve placed on a metal pole up above some type of stove pipe guard makes an excellent back up system. I have the wire high enough to walk under.

More arrivals yesterday. I had five males and one female stay last night.....db

I arrived home from church today shortly after noon to find a ASY male and female had arrived on the strong southerly winds ahead of the storms that came through this afternoon. About 4 pm (after the weather had settled down) there were 2 ASY males and one female trying to feed flying low over the p...

Thanks everyone for the replies. You've got my wheels turning.

The aluminum I have would allow for a house approximately 19"x 19"x 60"
or 32 compartments 9" x 9" x 7".

(I sometimes have a tendency to get carried away and over do things.)

Hello all, I remember a while back someone had built a nice martin house from 4 x8 sheets of foam construction insulation. Can someone tell me the type or brand name of the foam sheets? I'd also like to know the name of the adhesive that was used to glue it together. I've stumbled across enough scra...

Morning all, Ben / Joe, I'm still waiting about 50 miles south of you in Greenville. Sould be any day now. Last year I saw my first one on 2/1......db

I've witnessed hawks being fooled by my decoys a couple of times this year also. I'm using four wooden ones I cut out with a jig saw from a piece of 2 x 4 and shaped with a disc sander. I'd like to add a few more before next year. One of my four has a piece of stiff wire for legs that allows me to e...

Two of my four poles are protected by the 36" aluminum stove pipe guard. I have one pole with 4' x 4" pvc pipe at the bottom and the forth pole has a home made cone type guard. I'm in the process of installing a section of pvc pipe wrapped with copper wire and tied into my electric fence o...

I've had starlings entering the clingers with porches also. I don't remember the exact measurement from the porch. My clingers are the white plastic factory made ones.

Joe, I've got two houses on 2" galvanized poles. One of them is well over 100 lbs. The other one is a little less than 100 lbs. Each has been around several years and seen some pretty bad weather (like hurricane Ivan). They are both still standing. I drill a small hole through the pipe and inse...

I witnesses two hawk attacks on my home made decoys last year. On the first of those, the hawk grabbed the decoy and made a loop around the pole and grabbed it again. Based on the theory of the hawk getting the slowest bird, I think having a few decoys is very valuable. I'll be using at least three ...