Purple Martin Forum

I read his book, My Purple Martin Journey, and found several recommendations for attracting PMs. I have done the following: 1. proper height and placement of housing near human residence, nearby body of water, and open flyways. 2. Place a PM decoy 3. Dawn song/PM chatter at 4 AM - 9 AM and again in ...

No martins this year after replacing the crappy plastic house with Troyer Hor Gourds w/SREH. I think the birds in my area must be used to the PM house vs. gourds. I moved the plastic house down to the river side in amongst the trees with a clear flight path on one side facing the river. I have PM ch...

For those of you with net trap experience, have you ever caught anything else int he netting? I caught a horned toad once. His head got eaten off by the dogs before I noticed him there. In this case, I was just trying to keep the dogs out of a corner of the yard that had gotten muddy, so it covered ...

I had heard that you can clip their wings so they cannot fly very well. This at least would leave HOSP for predators. The guy that had an article on this also said he noted that the clipped ones did not breed that season. I.e., his sparrow trap did not trap any HOSP with clipped wings. I do not seem...

Thank you for the advice. I am ordering the predator guard and the stainless steel tubes to prevent leaking in the horizontal gourds. Saw a black-out liner for Troyer gourd lids, and might make some of my own. I put some mud on the entrances. I have seen only one male house sparrow, all others are C...

I have a terrific set up by the river, loads of open space. Had an old plastic house from Lowes that I bought years ago and mounted it at the old house. No PMs for 3 years. Mounted that old thing on 3/31 at the new house the day after we moved in and it was occupied the next day! This year I have no...