Purple Martin Forum

Veronica: You said, "I never go out anymore," so that must mean that you are single. The answer to your problem is simple:Get yourself a man. A man requires more care than the largest purple martin colony ever could;by the time you get thru waiting on and cleaning up after him, you won't h...

Sharon: Wow, snake number 4. You are infested with snakes, too. Why are they named rat snakes? I think Songbird snake would be more appropriate since I usually only see them around birdhouses. I live in a rural area and driving to town this afternoon two large rats ran across the road in front of my...

Aw, women are good sports. They finish high school and college in greater percentages than males so they know who's the smartest of the bunch. They aren't going to be offended by some silly insinuation, are you, ladies?

Astrid:

You didn't know? Johnny's been in jail. He got busted on Dateline.

If I remember correctly--and I could very well be wrong--the North Star house is a square house with 4 compartments per floor, with a compartment entrance on each side of the house, located at the end of the porch like the Trendsetter house. This type of house is made by both Dale Mckennon and Bob B...

Once upon a time before SREHs were invented and all of my martin housing was made out of that starling attractant called wood, I shot 84 starlings and 16 house sparrows off of my occupied martin houses in one month. I lived in the country and was able to use a Ruger 77/22 .22 caliber scoped rifle. I...

I wouldn't move the eggs. If I remember correctly, in that particular Coate's house the martin enters the first compartment, turns right/left and crawls thru another hole into the "nesting compartment." If you move the eggs into the nesting compartment, the martin may suspect predation and...

Astrid: I saw the picture of the rat snake caught in the netting at your colony site. From what I could tell, it seems like your birdhouse is almost surrounded by water. Since the snake in the picture didn't look like a water snake, I believe that if y'all can have rat snakes, anybody can. On second...

Mr. Moser: Here are my thoughts on rat snake predation at a purple martin colony site. While I am not recognized as a rat snake authority by my peers, I am a truck driver, which means I am pretty hardheaded and opinionated and have an answer for every question presented to me, be it right or wrong. ...

I have three wooden T-14s at my colony site. I used to think that the design of the T-14 made it pretty immune from male porch domination, but I was wrong. In fact, I haven't found a design of birdhouse yet that is completely free of porch domination--even gourd racks. Many people like to accuse the...

I got an email from the lady who is having such a hard time with the rat snakes this year. If you have been reading my posts, you know that rat snakes have almost decimated her martin colony--she has captured 4 rat snakes at her colony site so far this season. Bet you thought it couldn't get any wor...

Kathy:

Aw, you can pick up a snake, there's nothing to it. Just make sure they're dead, that's all. This young boy made the mistake of handling 3 live rat snakes. After the photo was taken they ganged up on him and swallowed him whole before the photogapher could come to his aid.

Here is a picture of the three rat snakes found in the gourdrack I reported on earlier. Now do you still think that you don't need snake netting on your birdhouse poles? Do you still want to remain in your present state of denial and gamble with the lives of your purple martin colony?, "Duh, ai...

I had to go look at the Heath, too, because I owned a 24 room unit back in the mid 1980s and I was curious to see if they finally made some improvements to it. I was so unimpressed with that house that I eventually threw it away. After enlarging the picture on the website, it is still hard to tell i...

I got a phone call this morning from the lady who had 3 rat snakes in her gourdrack yesterday. Her husband went and got the netting off my abandoned birdhouse pole as I suggested, and installed it on the gourdrack pole that was attacked by the 3 rat snakes. Well, she is a believer in the netting now...

Kathy: Before I began converting most of my housing to castles and gourd racks with square poles, a lot of it was mounted on 1 1/2" galvanized round pipe. What I did to make it easier to move my netting out of the way was to slip a 2 foot piece of 2" diameter PVC over the galvanized pipe. ...

A little old lady that I helped with her martin colony several years ago called me today all distraught. It seems she suspected something was wrong with the martins in the gourds on her gourd rack and had her husband investigate. He found three rat snakes in the gourds. I realize that is now politic...

John,

When I finished my post I saw Julio's suggestion and re-read John Miller's. I dunno, my suggestion looks pretty complicated in comparison to theirs'. I think you should ignore mine.


Sincerely, Bob Bozeman

Hi, John, Starlings breached the Trio crescented doors on a couple of modified M-12s last year. I eventually killed both of them with my pellet rifle. Afraid that this might be the beginning of a trend, I started looking for an easy solution to my problem. Since the homemade crescents on my homemade...

Mike, You are to be commended for what you are doing. It takes a lot of courage and conviction to approach someone at their home like that. I used to try to do it but almost got into a fight, so I quit. Many slumlords don't like to be reminded that they are....well, slumlords, and they take offense....