Purple Martin Forum

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Great photo Ryan!
I can only imagine how excited you must be!
Keep the updates coming.

I may get flamed for this, but to me flying a drone, or RC plane near Martin housing, is just causing undue stress on the Martins, and getting them riled up for no good reason. Sure the video footage fun to watch, but it's taking the Martins' attention off of the things they need to be doing - not t...

Ryan!!!!! This is so exciting! There are other like myself, that have really been following you and your mission to attract Martins over the years. Your perseverance has been most admirable. How ironic would it be if your SY male starts a colony at your site, that ends up supplying Martins to that o...

That should work fine. The main reason to go with a rope/pulley or winch and cable/pulley setup, is it is far easier to raise and lower the housing, as opposed to a telescoping pole setup. If you go with a styrofoam house, at least it's quite lightweight, which will make it more telescoping pole fri...

Brad and I are on the same page. Like I also mentioned earlier in this thread - matching the type of housing being used to the closest colony to you, will increase your chances. The gourds on a line idea is a really good one as well. You mentioned the nearest colony also uses a T-14. If you have eno...

Birds,
As you can see, opinions vary.
Definitely not an exact science.
Trees and predators are important factors, but had already been mentioned by others on page 1 of this thread.

Brad is correct - when it gets real hot (especially with late nests) your going to have jumpers even with aluminum houses. Aluminum houses usually have a lot of slots, holes, spaces, etc. that allows a good amount of air to move through them, which helps. Unfortunately those same slots and holes hav...

Birds, One thing that may increase your chances, is matching your housing to the housing being used by the closest colonies to you. You mentioned some T-14 houses, and gourds. Get granular - like what specific brand of gourds, and entrance types they're using. Same goes with the T-14 - entrance type...

Anthony,
I sounds like you might have an abnormally ill-tempered Kingbird in your midst.
I would suggest getting a lawn chair, and an ice-cold Big Red, and having a serious one-on-one chat with it.

Great writeup Steve.
They are indeed high-quality gourds.
I really hope to soon see them come with molded wing-entrapment protectors, on the starling resistant models.

Hi Brent, You are right. The shapes and angles of SREHs combined with very thin aluminum or plastic, is problematic. It really seems like wing-entrapment protectors need to be an inch in thickness or more, to be really effective. Even small round holes (smaller than 3”) when used in the aluminum int...

terrapincove wrote: ↑

Wed May 08, 2019 5:47 pm

I'm not sure what type gourds these are but i did buy them on this site

Troyer Vertical gourd.
Thanks for posting Hugh!

Good point Louise. I was thinking more along the lines of the number of Martins N.Y. has today, compared to what it had 60 years ago. Though I have no actual data, one can probably safely surmise that N.Y. has had to deal with a similarly noticeable decline in numbers, just as as other areas along a...

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I think you hit on a big one - lack of interest, which of course for eastern Martins mean loss of habitat. That, combined with 2 other big reasons: 1. house sparrows 2. starlings In unmanaged housing (which makes up the majority of currently deployed Martin housing), Martins have no chance competing...

That's awesome Anthony!
You're going to give a great presentation!

You can send her this link (WARNING GRAPHIC):
http://www.sialis.org/hospattacks.htm

Easiest, and least amount of possibly for error, is cervical dislocation (pulling their head off) - period.
Extremely easy to do it with your bare hands.
Here's a great resource:
http://www.sialis.org/hospdispatch.htm

One thing house sparrows are attracted to, are other house sparrows. Whenever I'm shooting house sparrows, I sometimes play house sparrow calls from my iPhone. Hearing other house sparrows brings them in to investigate. Not sure how far your Van Ert is from a window in your house, but if it's pretty...