Purple Martin Forum

hello all, I'm looking for recommendations regarding what you use to monitor your colony at night. I've modified my owl cages for this coming season and think I'd like to upgrade the camera I've used the last few years. I have to make sure that old great horned isn't getting too smart! thankfully, t...

Hello all, Just putting up a new nature house/trio, having put them together before I paid Evra a lot of $$ to assemble it and ship it to me asssembled, but that didn't help! It has a new lanyard system that automatically locks, but it will not go down the pole when we pull the rope out. Any ideas? ...

Hello again, Thanks so much! I had no idea the hanging hole was an issue! I'll be ordering the tubes from pmca. I do switch to the vented caps sold by troyers once it gets hot outside (michigan), and there are hatchlings in the gourds, but I'm also thinking the bottom drain holes must be wicking som...

hello all, This is the second year I've had troyer horizontals and I was surprised to see how very wet and dirty the nests were in the bottom this year when I changed nests at 10 days and 20 days. Is there a way to prevent this from happening? Lots of muck and wet, wet pine needles in the bottom cen...

nope that wont work because the guards are welded to the arms of the rack.. now what to do?? the guards from the bottom hanging gourds are too close to the upper gourds I think... couldn't an owl just perch on those and reach the rack right next to it?

Now that I have awesome new welded on owl guards for the troyers, I think the two tiers are too close together and the guards are too close to each other from top to bottom racks, so does anyone have experience with redrilling troyer gourds so they hang sideways? I'm wondering if that would put more...

Hello all, does anyone know if you can increase the distance between the two racks, upper and lower, on the gourd rack starter bundle with the upgrade to 12 troyers? I finally found a guy who is fabricating and then welding the owl guards for the troyer gourds directly to the arms, but I'm worried t...

I have been reading some old posts from Charles B. and M. Stephens and John B. about adapting an owl guard for a troyer horizontal.. If Charles or M. Stephens are still on the forum or if anyone else who has adapted owl guards for horizontals is on the forum, would you mind messaging me? I can find ...

Hello all, Yesterday I took down the trio houses and cleaned them all...and now I'm trying to figure out how to install the PMCA wing entrapment parts I bought earlier this spring. They are the white plastic arch/half circle ones. No directions came with them and although I've been reading old posts...

thanks much for the input....Ed, the colony has been here for several decades, but has always been small in numbers, up until this year when I finally "disposed of" over 100 sparrows last year and this year... fledglings went from 10 last year to 32 this year.. There are two trio houses ri...

hello all, I'm trying to decide what to do about owl guards and I'm wondering if those of you who have the various long pieces of metal that protrude out, over and along a gourd, think that they are effective. It seems that I've read that owls still hang from these, instead of the porches and so the...

My neighbors don't "get this", but I know all of you will.....After 98 nights, the battle with the owl and is finally over (hopefully for just this year) and luckily, the martins and I won! On May 14th, I confirmed that a great horned owl was attacking my small colony and had gotten two of...

Hi highrise, thanks for the reply...the houses are full of martin babies and I am not accurate enough with the pellet gun (with a scope) to trust that I wouldn't hit the house instead.. but I managed to trap 6 sparrows that one day last week, after I had a live one in the trap. Didn't have any sparr...

Hello all .. does anyone near me have access to a live sparrow or two? I have seen and trapped very few this summer but now that I have 24 baby Martin's, three sparrows have shown up and are perched and chirping from three trio houses constantly, and are not going in any of my traps. They're not eve...

THAnks and yes, I've read all of Kathy's horrific experiences...and we've built the cages and have enlarged compartments... i just talked to an owl rehab expert and she said to change visual environment every 5 or 6 days like hanging tape or hanging kites or even taping a stuffed animal to a stick a...

So the Great horn was back again last night and I scared it off with the cowbell and then the neighbors complained about my radio playing so I had to turn it off… Does anyone know if I can use the reflective tape on the houses or the short bird spikes on the top of houses to keep the Owl from perchi...

Thanks Billiejr ... can you tell me have you ever had an owl attack on your housing? My understanding is once the owl has gotten birds from your housing nothing will deter them… So not sure this is something I should do or not thank you

thanks to so many of you who so very very kindly responded to my desperate pleas for help yesterday..I sure hope someone does something kind for each of you today...But, please, like Kathy and April have said before... please learn from my experience? I live in Oakland county, white lake, Michigan. ...

really need go know how faar should the fence extend past the bottom of the house...a very kind guy at h ome depot made a plan for me and i'm working on teh first one..but so not sure of what im doing...should i leaave the trio owl guard on inside the owl cage? you all dont know me...i was an academ...

yes John, thanks.. found a wing under old trio house last week, thought it was raccoon, couple nights later found a decoy ripped off in the yard, it wasn't raccoon , cause I found more purple martin feathers under a tree in the yard last night just I was checking for wing entrapment at sunset, then ...