Purple Martin Forum

Thanks everyone for all the advice and the positive vibes! We will keep on keeping on.

Update: Still no female Martin. The male is still sticking around and sitting on the house. He's been gathering green leaves and putting them in another chamber. He still won't go in the one with the eggs, but does sit by the opening. I also was successful in shooting the Starling, it fell off the h...

Rob and Tom, Thank you for your reply! I've checked all the other chambers and the female Martin isn't there. There are no signs of a struggle in any chamber or on any balcony. The nest looks undisturbed with the exception of the eggs. I've also looked around in the yard and didn't see any feathers ...

Hi all! So we've had a successful mating pair of martins since 2016. I say it's the "same pair" because they show up within a day of one another and always immediately go into the chamber of the house they use every year. They build great nests and are very attentive to the house and are a...

Hello all, So we had our regular martin pair return earlier this year and lay 5 eggs. Well unfortunately due to weather and mother-nature in general only 1 egg ended up hatching. This was several weeks ago and the baby has since fledged. We noticed over the last few weeks that we've had a lot of &qu...

Louisiana88, I'm in Central Oklahoma and it took us 2 years to get martins. The first year, we just put up a house and had a lot of visitors, but none stayed (2015). The next year we put up the house again, made some adjustments to make larger rooms, added two gourds, 2 decoys, and played the dawn s...

**Update** This morning (4/5/17) at a little after 7am I saw a dark male purple martin coming out of one of the compartments and trying to get into another one (the one that they nested in last year) and he kept struggling to get it. I got nervous thinking there was something wrong, so I walked outs...

Congrats! That's great! I hope the one that was hanging around my house this morning returns again tonight.

Fellow Okies, Last night we had 3 adult males and 1 female flying around our PM house around 6:30 last night. One of the dark males swooped down like he was going to land on the house, but would pull up at the last second. He finally settled on the power line a little further back. He sat there for ...

Hi! Have you noticed any martins in your area? We put up our house (but left compartments closed) around March 1st, which was our 'arrival date' for the area that I am in (Oklahoma). This past weekend was the first time we've seen martins in our area. So you might check to see when the martins are e...

Hello fellow Okie! I am new to this whole landlord thing, as last year was our first year to have a family of Martins and successful rearing/fledging of 3-4 out of 5 babies (we had 5 eggs, then after they hatched only noticed 4 babies, and officially only saw 3 fledge at the same time...so we're not...

Anthony, the purple martins were first seen on 4/29/2016 in our backyard (central OKC). I didn't know if they would be earlier this year since last year was their first time nesting at our site? Thanks for the tip though. I'm running to the window at every black bird flying over the house!! :grin: *...

Hello all! Last year was our first year to get a little martin family (3 babies!) and everything went well. This year we put up the house around March 1st, but closed the entrances to keep out starlings and sparrows. I know martins are supposed to show site fidelity and return to their breeding site...