Purple Martin Forum

Mike,

It's good to see someone else is local as a landlord.

Great pictures.

I love the little "pinkies".

I have a bunch of kids from the neighborhood who are following my Martin progress.

37 hatchlings so far here. Hoping they all fledge.

Dan

msalcido

I have lived on a lake where fireworks are always a big 4th tradition.
My birds don't pay any attention to them.

Martins are a very trusting bird when it comes to human activity.

Dan

Ray,

Looks like I may have some of your SY's.

Of the 5 new pairs this year, 4 are SY pairs and the other is an ASY male with a SY female.

Just keep them coming. I'm up to 10 breeding pairs this year... :-)

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I'm having a GREAT year with my martins. Thus far I have increased to 10 nesting pairs (with some quirks I must admit; to be listed later) I beleive this is in part due to the addition of a second house. Of these nesting pairs I had a whopping 46 eggs laid. I lost ...

Good news so far. I have 10 nest so far (one partial, maybe nest). No eggs yet. Over the last day or 2, they have been really working on building and I saw at least 2 "greening" their nest. I doubled nesting capacity by adding another S&K house next to the original this year and have d...

Funnt but I do tend to name some of them. I have "The dragon lady" for he r propensity for bringing in large dragon flies to the nest. Then there is "Alice", after The Honeymooners since she constantly nags her male everytime he lands. There is "The cougar" an Adult Fem...

Delma, There are several plans to build a "Sparrow trap" They work. I had a single pair of persistant House Sparrows nesting in one of my houses. I placed the bulit and placed the trap near the house before the Martins arrived. Sure enought I caught my first male the very next day. Dispose...

I observed one of the funniest displays ever a few days ago. One of the young females was being courted by 2 males. Instead of playing hard to get like most do, she did a little dance for them both that I can only describe as "Twerking". I almost choked to death laughing. (Spit a mouth ful...

Don't be discouraged. My birds were late by about a week this year. Last year I had 5 nesting pairs, this year (so far) I have 10 nest and one possible nest. If there are nesting pair locally, their offspring will need a place in the future. R/ Dan Well, Looks as if I I'll be starting all over again...

Thanks for the suggestion. R/ Dan I've shared some ideas here too. You have a lot of options. The good news is that a Red Tail isn't near as fast as a Cooper's or Sharpie with which I'm dealing with 3-4 times a day. http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/03/protecting-your-purple-martins-from-owl.html

Thanks Lousie. Helpful as always. It looks like after the colony all arrived and the nest were selected. My martins went into defense mode. The hawk only gets half way across the lake before my little "air force" leaps into action and attack him in force. As a precaution I have made the wi...

I need help figuring out how to keep a persistant Red Tail Hawk from attacking my houses. I have (2) 12 room S&K houses. Are there any plans for a Hawk or Owl guard that will keep this menace at bay?

I had a good year last year. 5 nesting pairs, 27 eggs, 19 confirmed fledges. Suspect Hawk attack late in the season took my last 2 fledglings just prior to fledging. :cry: All 5 ASY males hanging at the house. I added an additional house (12 room S&K like to first) Hoping the see ASY pairs form ...