Purple Martin Forum

Thanks all for the comments and suggestions. Matt F., Natureline sounds familiar. Through the searches I’ve already done, I was pretty sure they were no longer available. When we bought them, we had already put starling excluder entrances on our house, but all that was offered on these gourds (other...

Does anyone remember the brand name of a gourd that had a "pop-off" front? As I remember, we had a choice of a round hole or an oblong hole. A picture is attached. I'm guessing this brand is out-of-business, but I want to make sure. We're having a big starling problem this year, and they s...

Thanks for the comments. An air horn would surprise him! I don't know if hubby yelling and clapping at him scared him or if he was just ready to move on at the time. We haven't seen him the last couple of days, so perhaps he came to the conclusion there was nothing here, yet? We turned our 12-room h...

We have a well established, but small (6 apartments in a 12-room house and 8 gourds). For a week we've had a Kestrel trying to get "up close and personal" with our Martin housing. I understand with a large colony, there will be enough Martins to run them off, but not sure how that will pla...

I know they're not totally gone yet. I have a pic from July 24, 2004, with about 24 birds hanging all over our house. (We hadn't yet put up our gourds.) It was a rainy day. I guess they just wanted to rest? A few years ago we did a short camping trip into northern Arkansas in early August. A Purple ...

This is always such a sad time of year. Through late June, baby Purple Martins were hanging out of all the nests. Moms and dads were flying crazy every which way feeding them. We go out of town for a week, and all the activity is over when we get home. Yes, we still have a few Purple Martins flying ...

We've been gone a few days, and know by now our baby Martins have all fledged, but the sparrow pair is still hanging tight, so we dropped the house to check it out. Four half grown sparrows will not see adulthood! Mamma sparrow is going nuts, in and out of her empty nest! (Maybe she'll have a nervou...

C.C., Through April and May, we captured several sparrows in a Troyer style trap and the in-hole trap got rid of the individuals determined to use that space. (Love sitting on the deck seeing the sparrow go in and the orange appear in the door!) We don't think either of these would go in the Troyer ...

I’m so mad I can hardly see straight! As May progressed, it appeared our 14 Purple Martin apartments should be full again… except one space in the house. (Do Martins sometimes leave a space open for sparrows on purpose???) All through May we trapped and disposed of six sparrow couples (and caught mo...

Thanks for providing some clarity. I guess it's just strange to us that we've never observed this type of behavior from a female Purple Martin before. Maybe as more of our colony arrives she will settle down?

About a dozen of our Purple Martins are already here. We have something we've never had before. What appears to be a sub-adult male (or possibly a female) is very aggressive. It will approach another Martin and "peck" (or nudge) with its beak and force the other bird to move. This has been...

So that's how you get frozen crickets!!! Weather-wise, I don't really consider what we're having that unusual for late March. (Last year was the strange one!) What is unusual is for the Purple Martins to arrive here this early. We normally don't expect to see any till about March 29-30. I can only h...

Locally, I got some live crickets at Petsmart in Belton 2-3 years ago when we had an early April snow. Between them being very small and their quick efforts to get away, I don't think they did the Martins any good at all. I was then thinking about mealworms, but luckily, the weather improved quickly...

I know you've got to be real near us. (We're north of Ray-Pec HS.) I'm amazed you did so well last year. In recent years, we've had 14 pairs (full facilities). Last year, ours started out normal. They all appeared to be in the nesting process, but then as the drought and heat became more severe, all...

My one lonely guy was still hanging around this morning, but is gone right now (unless he's in the house, but I don't think he is). A miserable day here. I wonder if he was smart enough to head back south? I have an old 9 x 9 cake pan that will attach to the pole under the house. We fixed it up to h...

A few years ago, when we had a bad April cold snap, I bought some crickets at a local store. They were so tiny, Martins didn't seem interested in them at all. For mealworms, I read you have to put them in sawdust so they can make it move around, or will they eat dead mealworms? I saw some mealworms ...

As I glanced outside late yesterday afternoon, saw what I thought was 3 or so Purple Martins flying around the still closed-up house and empty gourd rack. (Have recently had a lot of plain black birds enjoying our black oil sunflower seeds meant primarily for the Cardinals, so had to take a good loo...

Well, think we've made it through the cold snap with all birds alive. :lol: (Ended up being up to six birds by Friday evening. Wish they'd just park down south a little longer!) Picked up some crickets at PetSmart on the way home Friday evening, and went out at 5:30 with high hopes of feeding some t...

I guess what I think are crickets are quite different than what will come from the pet store (or a bait shop)??? I'm expecting to see the little black bugs that try to invade our basement and garage every summer, but I looked at Astrid's post "Best Feeding Tray Ever," and I see they are br...

Hadn't thought of hand warmers, though I've heard of such things. Guess these are a WalMart item??? Do the Martins eat dead crickets OK? I thought they preferred live bugs. After freezing crickets, they are actually alive when they thaw??? Think it might work to put the crickets in a couple of the n...