Purple Martin Forum

Looked cracked.

No owl guards. I do have tunnel entrances on our gourds and the SREH. We did have a real persistent SY male that was causing a lot of ruckus for about 3-4 days before they left. Possibly he caused a problem? But there was still 2 good eggs that were in the nest. We do think we saw the male hanging a...

We had a pair of 2nd year birds here this year that came real late. In any event they built a nest and had 4 eggs. When we checked this past Wednesday 1 egg was gone. We haven’t seen the pair since last week. We still have visitors each day. We pulled the house down today and 1 of the 3 eggs was cra...

It’s advisable to leave up some of your old housing. When the martins return next year they will be looking for the familiar housing at your colony site. You may want to close off most of the entrances, but leave a few open. The martins that don’t get the older housing will start checking the new c...

Thanks Robert! I book marked that for this winter. Will install the owl guards on mine.

In the off season, feed cracked corn and shoot the sparrows when they come in. You should be able to put a corn pile where it is safe to shoot and within range.

Good luck. I’m battling young sparrows now. Apparently didn’t get all the parents. Shot over 40 this year already.

Take out the male first if given the choice. The female may leave on her own then.

Pellets are going to be way more accurate than BB’s. If you want to even get more technical, try JSB pellets as they seem to shoot straight out of even the cheaper pellet guns. They probably can be bought off Amazon or a place like PyramydAir Dot com.

Good luck.

Update, yesterday a ASY male and female showed up and hung around for a while. Looks like they were probably 3 year olds. They were back again this morning so maybe that is my pair from last year. Hope they stick around.

Shoot them with a pellet gun if you can in your area.

I feed cracked corn all year and shoot them with a .25 caliber pellet gun that is extremely accurate. When we moved to our new house back in 2012 I shot over 60 of them. Now I manage maybe 20-30 per year. They will show up in waves and I can get 5-6 in a week then don’t see any for weeks or months. ...

We are playing the dawnsong. I did not put decoys up as last year my pair would dive bomb the decoy. I will remove the perch bars that came with my setup as the tree swallows always land on them.

Last year we had our first pair. They only fledged 1. This year they have not returned yet. Is there still time for them to return? Some in WI are still reporting Martins showing up in the past week. I did change my housing from last year getting rid of my aluminum house with a few gourds hanging un...

Last year we had our first pair. They only fledged 1. This year they have not returned yet. Is there still time for them to return? Some in WI are still reporting Martins showing up in the past week. I did change my housing from last year getting rid of my aluminum house with a few gourds hanging un...

Good question. We had our first pair last year and they have not been back yet. Quite a few reports around us so I know the birds are back. Our pair last year only fledged 1.

Use them. Glyphosate has no residual affect. Plus they probably have been rained on/washed since the gly was applied.

You should have plenty of martins around you. I just bought my used T14 from a guy in Chilton quiet a ways away from the lake. If you take a drive by boat on the east shore of Winnebago there are houses all over. Most probably have no idea of this organization. On the west shore where my parents liv...

We had our first martin egg around June 12th and another nest check on June 15th there were 4 eggs. Nest check on June 25th revealed 5 eggs. On July 5th we had 1 hatchling and 4 eggs. My wife checked again on the 7th and we still had 1 hatchling and 4 eggs. She checked again tonight the 8th and ther...

If he comes back within 5 minutes of you going inside just crack the door and be ready to shoot him. No noise or movement just wait him out. When he lands, poof done.

Good luck. Chris

I just added tunnels to my gourds and SREH after the eggs were laid and they went in. I ended up doing it in steps, adding the tunnels first then a couple days later adding the SREH. Glad I did. Go for it.