Purple Martin Forum

I have four gourd racks that have been in place for about 6 years. In past years I have always used wood shavings as bedding material. When there are large broods the nests get so messy and packed down so I was thinking about using pine needles this year but I don't want make a change they may not l...

I've never been bothered by them after cleaning infested housing...must be all the garlic I eat! I should try that in the nests instead of Sevin.

Thanks for the info on the plugs.

Thanks for the advice. I haven't been touching any of the older ones...just carefully putting a couple handfuls of new shavings over the wet nests and treating mites on the outside which seems to work well. I had two DY on the ground under one of the wet nets and one DY in the nest last week and fel...

I tried to do a nest check yesterday and stopped because of the chaos I was causing being close to the housing. I guess some of the young are fledging and the adults don't want me around. I lowered one pole and needed to replace a nest but a baby next door jumped out. I checked quickly for mites and...

I did a nest check in one of my Troyer horizontal gourds on the 12th and there were 6 HD young. On the 16th there were 6 but one was in the tunnel and cold and one on the side of the nest. I put them both back in the nest with the rest. Today there are none. This is the first year I have participate...

Does anyone know if there is a roost at Joe Wheeler State Park in north Alabama?

Thanks for the support! I do worry about them. We have had several we had to put back up that left the nest too early but these 4 do not want to leave the gourd. We had to go out of town yesterday and I'm getting ready to go check on them now. So far we've had a good year with no casualties and I do...

Good news! The parents were back feeding and peering into the gourd this morning. They are trying to get them to come out I guess. So far no heads appearing.

I check the nest every 3 days so they are anywhere from 21 - 24 days old. I have not seen any heads poking out of this gourd like the other fledglings do but I did see the male and female going in and out yesterday. I waited for their return this afternoon but they never came. I hope they are trying...

I think I'm going to have a nest of 4 babies left by the parents again this year. Last year when we cleaned out the gourds I found 4 perfect babies with all their feathers petrified in the nest. This year I'm doing nest checks and I found 4 fully feathered babies still sitting in the gourd. I saw th...

I tried shooting them for a while but the minute they see you they fly off. I kept tearing out the nest so they would continue building and ordered an extra gourd and put a trap in it. When the starlings arrive and start carrying in straw I replace whatever gourd they have chosen with this one...get...

Thanks for the advise on making more Starling resistant tunnels. I've raised the porches on the Excluder II gourds and that seems to work for those but the porches on the Troyers are already level so that wouldn't work there. And for the advise on rocker clamps for the gourds. We've had a good bit o...

I added four more this year to the six I had last year and have not had any trouble with anything getting stuck...including some Starlings who took over one of them.

My BB house is withing 50 ft. of my colony site. When I first put up the gourd racks the BB's did hang around it but it didn't stop the PM's from taking it over. I also started with SREH's but mine have porches. Most of them scooted right in but some of the larger ones took a little longer to wiggle...

Yesterday we got 3 female starlings and today my wonderful husband shot a male starling off the perch on top of our gourd racks trying to lure a female in. She hasn't returned; hopefully she won't. After 30 years in law enforcement he is a lot better shot than me. They sit and laugh when I have the ...

I've been shooting at them all spring with a pellet gun. When they see the gun round the corner of the barn they fly off. I work and we don't live on the farm where the housing is so I can't be there all day...that's the problem. I spend all weekend there chasing them off. I need to make a blind of ...

We got 3 Starling females out of our housing today and smashed 2 eggs one of them had managed to lay.

Will the males take off or will they try and attract more females to our site?

We raised the porch on the Excluder II gourd to a little less than 1/8 " below the opening. That also raised the inside porch to the same height. I hope that won't create problems with them being able to exit the gourd. I'm going to watch carefully the next couple of days.

I have had starlings building nests in my Excluder II and Conley 2 gourds this year. I am going to build up the porches and see if that works keeping them out.