Purple Martin Forum

I live in LeRoy, IL near Bloomington, just off of I74 at mile marker 149. Starting tonight and by tomorrow afternoon we are suppose to have 5 to 7 inches of rain. Weather man said some areas good even get up to 12 inches. The ground is so hard here there will be a lot of run off. Which means lots of...

Had so ,any martins fly over head tonight There was n way to know how many. Must have been a thousand or so. They kept flying overhead for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. They just kept going and going. It was a sight to see. I could see totally purple ones and of course a lot of lite colored breasts. Must have b...

I was out this evening and around 7:00 PM many purple martins came flying through. Some made passes over head above the gourd rack. Hope they were scoping my set up out for a return trip next year. At first I saw maybe 3. Then 6. Then 10. They were flying every which way over my set up and yard. The...

My visiting Martin that has been here 3 mornings straight was here today. Not sure if it was here yesterday or not. My wife didn't notice. So lets just say it has been here 5 mornings straight. I wish I could tell if it is sleeping here or not. Just maybe it could happen again having martins. Just k...

My visiting Martin that has been here 3 mornings straight was here today. Not sure if it was here yesterday or not. My wife didn't notice. So lets just say it has been here 5 mornings straight. I wish I could tell if it is sleeping here or not. Just maybe it could happen again having martins. Just k...

Congratulations!!!! I knew you would have them some day.

Haven't seen it stay the night. Kind of watching to see if he does. But if he is he is coming in Stealthily. I checked all compartments to tare out any sparrow nests and look to see if I could see a nest bowl of some sort. But it didn't look like there was a nest bowl. I had to lower the rack today ...

Well the Martin has been here in the morning for 3 days straight. I wish I could see it. I know it could be here again or never see it again. But being here 3 day's in a row must be promising. Still hoping it decides to stay. More sparrow nesting material torn out this evening. I know most of you wi...

Good luck.

Gary thanks for the reply. Had an other or same martin show up today around 9:30 and again around noon time according to my wife. For all times a sparrow decides to nest and is fighting with the Martin according to her. What luck. Rat birds show up too. Hope it likes it here and tries again. Hope to...

Last night I lowered my rack. Storms were coming through. I didn't want the rack to get damaged. Well I went to work this morning and forgot to raise it up. Around 11:30 I got a phone call from my wife at 11:30 AM. She asked me if I wanted my rack raised up. There are 2 martins on it. So I said sure...

Well I was at work so I didn't see it. But my wife said she saw one of my Darn birds. She has no clue if it was a SY, ASY, female or male and don't give a hoot. But at least she knows what they look like. And at least she told me a martin was here this morning. I would have to assume it was a SY, wh...

Bill,

Thanks for the info. I will remove the pre-nesting material in the gourd and see if any are at the bottom. If so they will be terminated.

I have had gourds up for 9 years now. Never had a problem with wasps until this year. If it is not in one gourd it is in an other. I keep killing them and removing the nest but they seem to come back. They are worst than the rat birds.

Send some towards Illinois. I have lots of room for them.

got mine yesterday as well. Haven't had a chance to read it. But I did flip through it. Look like good reading.

Delma,

I pulled out 3 nests with eggs by the same pair. The last time I tore out the nest I left the eggs in an empty gourd. I guess they didn't like that so they left. Haven't seen them since.

Good luck with getting your first martins.

D'Nese. Send them on there way. Right now I am pest free and of course free rent. So once I have said pest free I will be dealing with them tomorrow. We have had threats of sever thunder storms for the past 4 days. And continue through Monday. So My rack has been down so IT will not blow over. I wou...

Trish,

Maybe extending the partitions out flush with the porch so there wouldn't be any domination from one cavity to the other. It would also make it impossible for the babies to move from one cavity to an other.

I do agree with some gourds as suggest earlier.

Good luck.

Well, I seen a ASY male on Easter Day. That will be my only martin I have seen all this year. I suppose I may have 2 weeks that maybe I can still see some come by. But my possibilities are diminishing pretty fast. I guess I will have to hope for next year. Hope all have a good year and have a lot of...