Purple Martin Forum

Hi Jill, There's definitely something amiss with the Martins in our area. There have been reports of folks in our area reporting no returning Martins since the freeze, and these were active, healthy colonies in previous seasons. I need to check the housing at UHCL that I help with, and see what the ...

Hi Jeff, Once your Martins have started laying eggs, I would highly recommend not doing any more sparrow nest tear outs, until you've first eliminated the male sparrow of the nest your tearing out. There is a known phenomenon first documented by landlord Steve Kroenke called "house sparrow reve...

Great article John! You've been doing a lot a great work for years on behalf of Missouri Martins! I got a chuckle when I read this quote from the article: Miller, who had learned about the birds while growing up in Kentucky, chirped pretty much incessantly until Forest Park gave him permission to pl...

Hi Rob, I too have been having similar concerns ever since the freeze. There are a few colonies here in the Houston area that have been hosting Martins for years, that have yet to see any returning ASY birds. These are colonies in the 10 to 14 pair range, that usually see their first arrivals in lat...

Love your TW-12 Trio Wade. In the world of Trio/Nature House fandom - the TW-12 is a real trophy, due in large part to it being the namesake of the great Jesse Wade.

So cool you have that SY male working for you now! What is also really cool is how you where able to place the Clinger entrance plates directly over the Nature House round/keyhole entrances, and the SY male is able to go in and out with no problem. There's always a concern that the original holes ne...

We only have the Dog-day Cicadas here in southeast Texas (2-5 year lifecycle - different from the 17-year variants), but one thing is for certain - based on how eager all animals seem to be to catch and eat them (dogs, cats, birds, etc.) I'm convinced they must taste like candy to animals.

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Greetings, Hopefully others will enter in with some additional advice.. However in the meantime, Dan Drew put together a great document sometime back to help folks address issues like this with Tree Swallows and/or Bluebirds: https://www.purplemartin.org/uploads/media/treeswallowemergency-377.pdf Th...

Matt. F, I was thinking the same thing when you mentioned if Chirpy would ever make a colony style housing using the chirpy compartments. Hi Dave, I was poking around, and found some videos posted by the maker that shows some multi-compartment Chirpy Nest units. They look really good, but I'm not s...

Great video! That was a gorgeous shot of them all cupping in to land on the rack. I wonder if the Chirpy Nest maker has ever considered making a multi-compartment Chirpy Nest house? Using the same great features of the current, individual units, and incorporating those into a large, multi-compartmen...

GMmajor, Keep an eye out. There's an established colony on the UHCL campus not far from you to the north that as of yesterday had not seen any returning Martins. This colony usually hosts 10 - 14 pairs, and has been active for about 12 years. They usually get their first arrivals in mid Feb, but tha...

Hi Carol,
I looked on another website that sells racks for Troyer gourds and SuperGourds, and the cable they use for all the 18, 24, and 36-gourd racks is "Stainless Steel cable - 34' of 3/16", 7 x 19 strand"

My heart goes out to you Whippy. There are a lot of us that have been where you're at right now with the hawk attacks. The PMCA should take a survey (like they did with the wing entrapment survey (which it would be nice for the PMCA to report back about that)) about colony raptor attacks, and the sp...

My heart goes out to you Steve. You're definitely not alone. Unfortunately, Cooper's appear to be exploding in numbers, at a higher rate than they should be. Human development, specifically suburban settings, have for years provided the perfect habitat for smaller songbirds to live and flourish. Ove...

Matt F. is a Trio Jedi Master. His wise advise is appreciated. You are too kind Mark, and you give me way too much credit! I guarantee there a lot of aspects of Trios and Trio renovations that folks out there know more about than I. Numerous fellow Jedi like yourself, Evan, Dorn County, John Miller...

Great job taking on the Trio renovations! I wholeheartedly agree with Mark - dispense with the lanyard locking mechanism. It was a novel idea, but turned out to be more troublesome than it was worth. I do have to give Trio engineer Arthur Vail credit though - it was a very simple, and inexpensive de...

Those look really good Deancamp! One thing to keep an eye on, is your seals being so good on those trays, that they may actually hold any water that my come in from above through various seams and cracks in the housing. I had put together some nest trays sometime back for a couple of houses (one Tri...

Hi Philsand, I have not personally used the WatersEdge houses, though they are popular and have some really good features. They appear to have the bottom of the crescents at approx. 1/2" above the deck, which is the same as the Trio/Nature House crescent doors. This higher up position is good a...

You are most welcome, and thanks for the kind words.