Purple Martin Forum

Thanks for the replies everyone! I really appreciate your comments, suggestions and encouragement! I believe I may make a bit of an investment into the Bird-X dawnsong player on the PMCA store. And, I do have another question. Have any of you ever gone to your local town and ask if they would buy a...

Happy New Year! A team of sponsors in Panama City will be hosting a free showing of Zach Steinhauser's feature length documentary "Purple Haze: A Conservation Film" on January 16th, 2025, at 6pm in the Gulf Coast State College Sarzin Lecture Hall. Any folks interested are encouraged to att...

I appreciate everyone's responses. Special thanks to Forum Admin for a direct answer to my question. I wasn't sure if additional thickness above the 3/4" wooden wall was warranted. I will be building nest trays between now and when the T-14 goes up, which I plan to install after my regular colo...

I made a T-14 out of 1x12 roof decking recovered from a hurricane damaged 60-year-old house. The 3/4" thick walls and roof should be good for insulation, but I know that they will be heavy. I made it several years ago after Hurricane Michael did his damage but will just get around to putting it...

I have spent the last couple hours surfing the interweb and this site looking for info specifically about the potential for wing entrapment in wooden T-14 houses. This is in anticipation of adding a T-14 I built several years ago to my small colony this year. I built it with all round holes because ...

Is the big blob to be ignored the rain in the gulf or the signature that looks like birds centered SE of Tallahassee? Thx for the radar reports! I think that I will have to visit the Apalachicola roost this week.

I have a suggestion for a PCMA research project. I tried to email it to PCMA but got a message back that my email was suspect and didn't get through. The majority of starlings and house sparrows that I see in my area are associated with traffic signal mast arms that have ample cavities for them to n...

Does anyone have experience with visiting this roost? Is it active this year? According to the interweb, mid to late July is peak time for this roost. Would love to see a radar report for it like the Texas radar in another recent post. Any reports or advice would be appreciated. My wife and I have r...

Yes, Martintown, I have seen lots of adults chase off fledglings, but these two times the fledglings somehow were accepted as just another hungry mouth to feed. Both times their larger size and strength was detrimental to the babies that were hatched in the gourds but only this year did it result in...

A couple years ago I had a fledgling from a different gourd return after a couple nights to a gourd that still had five babies in it. I guess he didn't like having to work for his food. The fledgling was dominating the other babies after a couple days and I, against my wife's protestations, interven...

Excellent PR, for martins and monarchs! Great job by you and your wife and the Jax reporter.

I have seen adults feed fledglings on the wing and a few days ago saw an adult drop a big dragonfly for another bird (couldn't confirm, but probably a fledgling) to grab out of the air. The fledglings I have seen fussing at each other while flying were fledglings. This evening was much calmer than y...

I have enjoyed watching about half of this year's babies already out and about after fledging and am looking forward to the rest leaving nests in the next week or two. This evening while relaxing on the back porch, however, I watched several ASY males abuse or chase or even wrestle fledglings to the...

I am nowhere that good of a shot and to prove it I have the pellet dent a quarter inch above the round entrance in a SuperGourd that had a male HOSP peeking out of earlier this year...

...happy mama = a lot less drama!

My colony is a 12-gourd rack on a galv round pole with a fixed pulley at the top of the pole and a pulley on the rack that raises and lowers. It isn't too heavy and has worked well for several years. The pulley system is a good start in my opinion. Good luck.

When I was a teenager I had a few pet rat snakes. We/I didn't have money to buy live food for them, so I got mice out of the trash cans when the ladies at the ceramic shop next door left crumbs in it and found a mouse and called me. I made live catch rat traps with old plywood and hardware cloth and...

Great looking house! Like the cedar shake roof detail. I built a T14 two years ago out of recycled roof boards after Hurricane Michael took the roof off my neighbors house five years ago. It's all painted up and sitting in the garage still, and the pole and ground stake and rest of the set up is lur...

Neil, I kept seeds from four good sized gourds that I bought north of Dothan, AL two years ago. Had 90% germination with the seeds I planted the last two years, but no gourds as big as the ones the seeds came out of. If you know what you're doing better than me, you might get larger gourds than I di...

Too cool! After fledging I just get a few to a dozen birds a couple times each day for an hour or less, and then the week or so before they leave I only get the same few birds for a few minutes each morning. They are gone now but yesterday I thought I heard one and excitedly looked at the rack and t...