Purple Martin Forum

Roger. Will do that tomorrow. Wasn't sure if that'd throw my PM off or not.

Yep.

Be gentle with me. New to PMs. Got gourds last summer. Had one visitor for a day and that was it. This year, we had a couple visitors about a month ago (north Alabama), so I opened everything up. The visitors ended up moving on. I left the gourds open hoping to get more visitors. Not surprisingly, t...

I've posted about tree Swallows already a couple of times. New to martins (well, as an adult. My parents had a colony when I was a kid). We have both a house (from my parents) and a pole with 8 gourds. Was having problems with tree Swallows, so closed up the gourds (they weren't interested in the ho...

Thanks for all this feedback! I did close up 7 of 8 of my gourds. Took the one that the swallows had nested in and moved it. The Martin has now been at the old house (next to my gourds, given to us by my parents since they weren't using it anymore), so I left the house open (the swallows have shown ...

Thanks! I'll take a gourd down and put it in the setup shown.

Maybe a dumb question....best way to block the entrances to my gourds and house?

I posted about this a few weeks ago...we had swallows approach our new gourds (first time trying to attract martins). We have been attempting to keep them away, clean out any nests they start, etc. I haven't seen them around as much recently. Just this morning we had our first Martin sighting at the...

Hey, new to the forums. I posted last week about the gourd system I just put up hoping to attract martins. My wife has been playing Martin songs in the mornings and low and behold we've had a young adult male (not sure all the abbreviations) show up a couple of times. Good news! Question. We also ha...

Hey! Thanks for all the useful replies. Here's a satellite view of the relevant part of our property. I've marked the location of our old house with a red dot. The columns of shrubs/trees to the east/west are 70-90' away from the current location. Was thinking of putting the gourds at the magenta do...

Hi everyone, I'm new to the PM game. My parents had a colony when I was a kid. When my wife and I moved out to the acreage we're on now, my parents gave me an old house they have. Unsure of the brand or history of it. I think it has 16 compartments, but not positive and it's dark outside so I can't ...

Brand new to the forum. Wish I was a little closer to you. I'm a few hours south in the Huntsville, AL area. My family and I just moved to an area where we have the space for martins (were in a very wooded suburb previously, now we're on 17 acres with 9.5 acres of pasture). Any tips for a new landlo...