Purple Martin Forum

Just got hit with around a good foot of snow last night, the last hurrah of winter I suppose. I suspect this will keep the martins away from Winnipeg for another couple weeks. No sparrows caught as of yet in the trapped gourds. Was thinking of putting some seed inside as a lure. Next task once this ...

Well, here we are again. It's early 2025 and I've got Purple Martins on my mind! This my third year thread, continued from last year . Hopefully this doesn't turn into a ten year thread chain of me trying to attract martins in vain. 😅 It's still quite early in the season for my zone right now. Marti...

Yup, doing the dawn song every morning.

I do wonder if I'm playing it loudly enough. I'm playing from a small JBL Clip speaker which I point upwards on the rack.

I'll also sometimes allow it to play through the day, just in case. But I'm not sure if that helps, hurts or does nothing at all?

Took down the gourds this past weekend. Obviously no martins this year, but I kept them up as long as I think made sense, although they've been long gone for weeks now I suspect. I know I'm doing this on hard mode given that I don't have any large bodies of water immediately near my house and this i...

Well, I suppose today is the day I passed my initiation, a rite of passage for all PM colonists. I saw two sparrows inspecting my un-trapped gourds this morning. So I went outside and unblocked my trapped ones and blocked the un-trapped ones. Sure enough, they switched to the trapped ones and within...

I'll probably look at some kind of chemical based option for the next sparrows I catch. I completely agree with what you guys are saying and I certainly don't relish it, but the fact that they're invasive species says it all. That said, I don't keep any firearm or pellet gun, full-on city boy here. ...

Thank you C.C, all valuable information and what to prepare for. I take it all seriously and will escalate as necessary. I reset the traps after letting the two out and since my last post, nothing has dared enter the gourds since. While I do feel it's a matter of time, perhaps the encounter of being...

I'm totally amazed and I have to agree. In the time between making my last post and just now, I looked out my window to see two red dots looking back at me! Both traps had caught sparrows in their respective gourds. I went outside, lowered my rack down and tapped on the gourds a little and sure enou...

A small update of things as of today. As many here predicted, I've been in a steady battle with my local sparrows. Cleaning out nests from my gourds has become daily ritual, just to make sure they don't get too much of a foothold. My goodness are those creatures efficient! No eggs thankfully, but I ...

Hello to the forum again! Happy 2024! This is my year two followup to my post from last year . It's been a long winter, but spring set in properly last week and I wasted no time getting the gourds up and filled with pine straw. My JBL speaker is pointed upwards and playing at max volume from 4:30AM,...

How neat. I don't think the crows are nesting close to my gourd rack, so I should be good. But they definitely come flying around any time I play the dawnsong. Actually - on that: Is there a specific volume I have to reach with the dawnsong for it to be at all effective? I'm playing it from a JBL Cl...

@jhcox -- Regarding the sparrows, yes, they had only been able to bring in one or two small little knots of dry grass before I noticed. Scared them off and they don't seem to be returning to make another attempt. I'm continuously (read: obsessively) monitoring the gourds, so if anything gets in that...

Will do! Thanks for the tip, I'll put in whatever effort is necessary! I'm desperate to get some in my first season, but I'm also just as happy to be set up for success next year. There is an established bird house at a large bioreserve about 1.5km directly North West of me. You can just see it peek...

Hello to the forum! Just wanted to introduce myself and describe my setup to see if anyone has tips or words of encouragement. 🙂 I became interested in Purple Martins last Summer after seeing a very active house in Foam Lake, Saskatchewan. I heard the sounds the birds were making and saw how active ...