Purple Martin Forum

Hey Jim good luck with that ladder I hope everything turns out ok. Just wanted to tell you you can get allthread on as the perch and they will last forever. They make it in several sizes. And the threading on it helps them hold on better. You can get it at any Home Depot or Lowes. Again good luck. ...

Thanks Dave. It sounds like rather than try to separate the top and middle poles and bring down the top one, I should separate the top two, intact, from the bottom pole and bring the two of them down at the same time (with help from my son-in-law). The house is down. I brought it down a couple days ...

Hello, After attracting martins for 6 years straight, I've gone 8 years without attracting any. I do get the occasional visitors, but none of them hang around. They did stop by enough this year to break my perch, and I need to replace it. (I made the perch out of a wooden dowel after breaking the al...

Thanks Coolwhips. As I said earlier, I'm not absolutely sure the birds I'm seeing are Mississippi Kites. They are certainly raptors of some kind. They spend their time soaring, often quite high, and infrequently go into steep dives. Louise advises above that they're probably not falcons. They stay f...

Well, I was hopeful that I'd hear from others in my area, but I haven't, so I thought I'd close the book on this thread, and on another disappointing year of zero martins for me. As I described earlier, I had a few pairs of ASY martins investigate my setup for a few days in the early March time fram...

I don't think Mississippi Kites could catch a martin, unless the martin is totally not paying attention. Kites strike from the air just like Red Tail Hawks. Air strikes aren't as successful against Martins because they can see it coming and have plenty of time to react. The Cooper is successful at ...

I wonder why they chose to ignore your little section of Texas. Coolwhips Thanks for the reply, Coolwhips. I wish I knew why they seem to be ignoring this area. I made a separate post on my experience in an effort to solicit replies from others nearby but there haven't been any. I'd chalk it up to ...

I've seen virtually none in my little corner of North Texas for about 6 years after attracting martins every year for about 5-6 years before the "dry spell". I suspect some kind of local problem or issue -- maybe predators -- because I've seen reports of normal numbers of martins not too f...

Hi all, I'm in North Richland Hills, TX, about 15 mi. NE of Ft. Worth. I'm pretty sure there are several who frequent this forum who live in the vicinity. My question is what happened to the martins around here? Does anyone have any idea? The martins abandoned my setup about 5-6 years ago and I've s...

I use a pair of heavy work gloves, not so much for the biting, but the pooping! :) I have one of the nest box traps with the round hole and the cover that slides to open the hole. I use my left hand to reach into the trap as I slide the cover open with my right. I use my right hand to seal the hole ...

katkola, I deal with starlings by using SREH on all cavities and I mount a nest box trap nearby, where the starlings can see it from the house or gourd they're trying to get into. After a starling struggles awhile (usually not very long) with the SREH, it will see the nest box trap and is drawn to i...

Ron,

As always, a great pic! Thanks for posting. As a wannabe photographer to a real one, how in the world do you take a picture of a martin in flight with a 300 mm lens!?

Ed

I have a 6 foot wood fence and I set my pole about 1 foot back from my fence when I initially put up the house 5 years ago in order to place the martin house as far as possible away from my house -- I have a pretty small lot. I didn't think about snakes at that time. Until last year, the only proble...

I actually had a hawk in my back yard last year around my sparrow trap (with several sparrows in it). It looked very different from the one in your picture, Gus, and I ID'd it as a Cooper's based on some research I did on the internet (I just looked for Google images of Cooper's hawks). In thinking ...

I'm no expert, but that looks like a sharpie, not a Coopers, Gus. Regardless, I hope he leaves your martins alone!

I've been lucky to not be bothered by hawks so far. I've seen a Coopers going after sparrows in my live trap, but he never bothered the martins.

Ed

Ed, FWIW, this is the 1st year I have seen a ES breech a cresent entry on a Super Gourd. Takes him about 2 seconds to get in. Sounds as a sparrow got in with the PM. Chuck I'll tell you, Chuck, I'm no expert, but I have been a landlord for four years and in that time I couldn't help but learn a bit...

Thanks for the reply, Spiderman, but all my compartments have sreh's. I've never had a starling enter one of my compartments. Usually they give up and fly over to my awaiting nest box trap, where I take care of them.

I suppose a starling could have squeezed in and did this, but I highly doubt it.

I've had two pairs of martins showing serious interest in my setup (Trio Grandpa with two Big Bo gourds attached) this weekend. I saw the first martins of the season about 10 days ago but they were apparently migrating and I went several days without seeing anything. Moreover, I've seen almost no st...

You should have your housing up and open now. Use SREH's for all compartments and set traps for starlings and HOSPs. There's lots of good information here on those topics. I saw my first martins here in North Richland Hills (about 40 miles west of you) 10 days ago, about 3 weeks later than last year...

I'm no expert but I've been trying, with some success, to attract martins for four years. I had a starling completely destroy my martin colony my first year. Now, I'm not bothered by starlings at all. I use nothing but SREHs -- crescents on my gourds and modified excluders on my MSS-12. The key to s...