Purple Martin Forum

Found four more dead in houses yesterday morning. Death count is up to 15. Still have 15-18 that are active. They were out feeding yesterday and flying. Didn’t have much interest in supplemental feeding. I’m afraid I will lose a few more over the next couple of days that have been weakened beyond th...

PMCA per there facebook said they will remove any post that discuss capturing martins/bringing them inside. Someone probably reported some posts. On a side note I am sorry to hear of all the losses. Being in FL I am not impacted and have several birds now too many for me to count and the thought of...

So far I’ve lost 9 males and 2 females. Fed another 500 crickets today. Martins looks a lot better. The sun being out helped. I’m down to around 18 martins now and expect I will lose another couple tonight. Hopefully tomorrow they will be able to feed on their own. On another note, did some posts in...

Thanks, Bird! And the Geaux Tigers from earlier didn't go unnoticed. Never in a million years would I have expected my favorite LSU Tiger of all-time to be a kid from Athens, OH! Martins are still feeding taking eggs and crickets. I think the hand warmers in compartments are making a difference. Aft...

We are thinking about removing the break and rope and replacing them with the Erva/NatureHouse winch conversion kit. They are just a bit expensive for what they are and, having no experience with them, we are unsure how well they will hold up. Suggestion for outdoor paint for use on aluminum that c...

That was basically my strategy. Sprayed every other day and even then at times it wasn't enough. I did vanilla soaked cotton balls in the cavities. Even used peppermint oil on cotton balls. The biggest problem with the cotton balls is that the martins would remove them quickly. It was raining cotton...

Overall, this was the best season I've ever had. I offered 112 cavities. Had 57 active nests. 54 were successful. 3 failed. 295 eggs laid, 269 hatched, and 237 fledged. It was the worst year I have ever experienced with buffalo gnats. If it weren't for the time off due to Covid I wouldn't have been ...

My notes on the 2020 season. Sorry for being long but maybe people can learn from this and spot something to help me out. After a long 6 years of nothing (at a new location), this season was a giant “180”. 4 nests, 22 eggs, 15 hatchlings. I think the biggest reason for finally getting PMs to stay a...

I honestly wonder if you painted the castles all white if they would take to them better. I would have to assume at some point the colony size would grow to the point the SY birds will have to use them. My neighbor has a Large castle on the edge of a pond. The martins have never gone to it. I thoug...

I'm running into some issues with occupancy on a couple of modified trio castles. Each system is has 12 double compartment rooms with SREH. Each system has two super gourds with Troyer tunnels hanging below them. Right now my colony has around 50 active nests with 186 eggs. The crazy part is that be...

The least expensive option is the 20' long 2"x 6" laminated post that Troyer has instructions on how to build. I think you can build it for around $100. I like the look. I built two and stained both. The one thing is you need to allow time for the lumber to dry before you build the post an...

At Epcot if you take the Monorail, you will see them on the right side as you pass between the Test Track and the Mouse Gear Shop. It's a really beautiful setting. They have them near the entrance to Animal Kingdom as well. They have some spread across the golf courses also. It really is an amazing ...

Evan337, what time do you see the most activity, in the AM or PM? I go through there quite often, and will adjust my travel time to coincide with the activity. Conrad, We drove past the site around 7:45 last night. The sun hadn’t set but it was close. Still plenty of light out. I bet they start gat...

This micro roost is back to being active. Looks like it has grown. Maybe 1,000 - 1,500 martins.

The buffalo gnats have been worse than I can ever remember this year in South Louisiana. Not sure why but they are thick. I don’t have any nests with young in them yet but in 3-5 days there will be a lot of hatching eggs. Last year I lost over 30 young. I believe gnats we’re the culprit. Most died b...

Lizzie, This is great. Thanks for posting. Some really good work on these houses. One of the things i enjoy about this hobby is the hands on/opportunity to build your own housing. I've built a couple of T-14s, Two PMCA Gourd Racks and have reworked trio castles, grandpas and mussleman houses. All ha...

Just some quick thoughts: 1. From my observations my martins seem to prefer a gourd rack that has all outward facing gourds. I just bought and installed a Gemini rack. So far I am extremely impressed - quality of construction, design, look, ease of raising and lowering, etc. The biggest difference I...

Evan, I have three of these houses complete from the perching rods on top to the cement at the bottom of the pole. They were rescued for me by my neighbor from someone he knows who was going to throw them away! They are somewhat faded but otherwise in good shape. If I get more than one pair of mart...

Thanks John. I used Dropbox for everything. dropbox.com I use Dropbox for my business and for personal files as well as picture storage. I pay $9.99/month for 1TB of storage but they offer 2MB for free. So you could just put pictures in Dropbox that you wanted to share and house the other pictures o...

I have been meaning to post this for a while but below are some details and pictures on a trio castle restoration I did last spring: I don't have any good before pictures but the house was in pretty bad shape. It belonged to a neighbor but they didn't tend or take care of it. A tree had fallen on th...