Purple Martin Forum

Congratulations with the pair Andrew. How far did you move the housing this year? Was it a long distance move to another property or just moving it in the same yard?

Glad you had some luck this year. When you had the SY males visit over the years, did they stay long or just stop by?

Switchgrass, I must have missed this thread a couple summers ago. Great read. I like how you describe in detail what the pair do during the day. Your line about watching birds for 25 years but then feeling like a novice when purple martins show up is so true. I've been trying for 14 years and have r...

Thanks. So I've never expected to see a single female here first. What does that mean? I've read sooo much about SY Males starting colonies and how the process goes, but really haven't studied a single female situation. Common sense tells me there's a good chance she would just fly and join an activ...

That is awesome news Ryan!!!! I still frequently think about you and your Martin housing, and your journey to get a colony started. I think this may be the first photo I've seen of your new sight, and it looks amazing Any news of any sightings at other locations you've setup housing at? Thanks Matt...

Almost looks like a female but I couldn't tell from the picture. Usually the pattern on the SY males underside is a little more "splotchy" for lack of better terms. Seeing it in person, you are probably correct with your identification. Either way congrats to you. No matter what the sex i...

I was pretty much giving up hope this year, when yesterday I stopped at home to grab something mid afternoon and the dawnsong that I was blasting with the wind direction sounded like it had an extra track. It was in fact an excited second year male soaring around looking for the source of the sound....

For me I find that dawnsong vocal to be just so much more clear and loud, easy to distinguish. I need to cover a lot of distance or "air" with the vocals, and I just find it more clear when played loud rather than the chaotic daytime chatter vocals. That's just my opinion, but at least ear...

No martin visits this year yet, but that's pretty much to be expected up here.

Are your birds still there and possibly nesting?

Hello! I put up my first set of houses about a month ago and have been playing the dawn song every morning. I seem to have at like 5-6 birds, including one adult male and unknown subadult males/females who have stuck around for the last couple weeks. I’ve seen birds go into my gourds. Do I continue...

This is all good advice. Once you get the tree swallows into that designed house 25-35 feet from your martin housing, they will take care of other tree swallows and keep your housing clear of them. It really does work. The best part is once they are trained they'll zoom into their blue bird house ne...

This is a good read for people trying to attract. Can't believe I'm now in the 13th year since my first post in this thread.

Good info though.

Just saw the first pair way up here this morning. Snow covered ground but nice weather coming. They always know.

Thanks for posting Doug. Your posts are always great. It's inspiring how you've grown that colony from nothing years back and you get the payoff of being able to watch and bond with the birds now after years of an empty site. So good.

I was thinking of Emil and hadn't seen him post recently and just did the internet search of his name as well, and sadly found the obituary.

He was a great person. He posted in a lot of my threads and answered a lot of my questions. So experienced, and straight answers.

A few young of the year banded at my colony were spotted 200 miles NE of my site a month after they fledged. Randy This is really good info, thanks. There's been so much research done on martins movement in migration and wintering season, but I haven't seen much tracking done on martins in their br...

I've been doing the dawnsong for a long time up here where there's almost no martins. I, like you have my player at least 120 feet from housing. They will find your housing, I don't think thats an issue, they'll see it from that close, but yes if it's simple to move the sound to your housing, do it ...

Nice story, I like clicking on these threads. More interesting as well as you're only a couple hours south of me. Hoping they stay for you, sounds promising that they keep coming back. I can only imagine the excitement.

How long have you been trying? Year 12 here. When did they first show up?

Thanks everyone. Yes, the goal now is to attract as many visitors as possible, I'm now comfortable with my site. I only see maybe one a year though, so that's an issue. Not sure how to increase that, there's just very few up here. I play the dawnsong a little louder than the real birds. For a couple...

Don’t forget Ryan there is also the fall when birds migrate south for the winter they may stop and stay over night to rest there or just see it and like it. They could come back to your site next year to start your colony. Good luck Yes, thanks. I've been playing dawnsong/chatter right through the ...

Into prime time up north here with really only a couple weeks left to get my site noticed by a SY martin. I can't believe it's going on 12 years. I've never lived at a house that was open enough to have housing, always too treed, so over the years I've scattered 4 houses across the county in open ar...