Purple Martin Forum

I have two six-suite martin houses and a 12 gourd rack. All but two compartments were full last year and we yielded 89 fledglings which was down a bit. We have our house on the market to sell and I have two questions: The real estate market is moving fast in our area and I would expect that we will ...

I have two traditional houses with six larger compartments each and one gourd rack with 12 gourds. We had 19 pair last year. I have two males consistently hanging out and I have seen maybe 3 more martins flying around. Neither male seems to be hanging consistently at the same compartment. I have onl...

Well, it is way too quiet in the mornings now here in Waller, Texas. I know it is probably posted somewhere on the site but can someone give me a quick rundown again on how/where to submit my electronic Martin Watch info. We had a pretty good year. Same amount of parents as last year but twice the f...

Kathy, Yes, we do have SREHs and my husband has rid the area of all starlings. Still have issues with sparrows but at this point, the adult birds seem to do a pretty good job of keeping them away. We did have an issue with one sparrow couple in our gourds and my husband took out the male last week. ...

Yes, Deb, it was crazy. These birds had to be taken out of the back compartment, through the front compartment and somehow landed on the back porch. No way they came through the back. All door openings were closed off. It was terrible, One was tangled in the porch railing and we had to destroy the r...

This happened in my trio house which has been adapted to the two suite (front to back) larger suites No. 1 -6. 5 babies in Compt. No. 6 were born on 5/3. on 5/4 6Y born in Compt. No. 4 and 5Y in Compt. No. 5. During nest check on 5/13, I found 3 DY in Compt. No. 6 and two barely hanging on. There we...

Thanks guys. I'll keep sicking my husband on them! I am not sure if I could do the whole rat trap tape thing but Kathy if we don't get this guy this weekend, I might have to resort to that. In our house, I like to think sparrow disposal is my husband's job!

Once we get rid of the male should I close this particular gourd up with the assumption that no new martins will arrive this late?

Just don't want a new sparrow couple to move in

DARN. My husband took out the female tonight before I even finished my post! I will have to make him stay home from work until he gets the male! It is the only bird that I allow my husband and son to shoot that they are not required to eat!

I live in Waller which is fast becoming an extension of Houston out west. I sent an email to the rehab center. We have several nests with babies already but none that are more than a week old. If we can help, we certainly would be willing. I am leaving town on Wednesday though for a few days.. don't...

I have had great success this year ridding my colony of sparrows. Between my husband and son, they were able to shoot any that tried to even hover of the housing! There is just one persistent couple that has escaped them. They have moved into one of my artificial gourds. I have pulled the nest each ...

Found my first egg here in Waller, Texas. We have 24 cavities and it appears 23 have active nesting going on. I think the almost full capacity has to do with the fact that my son graduated from college and had a two week window of vacation before beginning employment -- he spent it perched out the b...

Unfortunately Louise, It is the hawk that is in the tree with the martins soaring overhead. The picture is a bit distorted and makes the martins look large. It is one of those fast flying little guys -- Coopers Hawk maybe? He has been camping out in the small trees on our 20 acres. We have red tails...

Okay, obviously I don't know how to post pictures. I prefer to spend my time outside watching the birds. Let's try it one more time -- hope it's a charm. If no picture -- any advice would be appreciated!

This hawk just isn't getting the message. Between my son discharging the 22 every time he enters the 20 acres and the martins ganging up on him, you'd think he would leave. I snapped this picture of a couple of the martins buzzing him. Surprisingly they don't seem as agitated by this guy as they usu...

Nobody told me when I started getting serious about this hobby that it would be all consuming!!! For the last several days since I opened the house to our returned martins, I have spent more time screaming at sparrows; spotting for my husband to take them out; new arrival of 3 starlings (one less to...

My son called me last night and said he spotted one male at dusk but we hadn't opened the houses because we have a terrible sparrow problem. This morning, in the dark, my poor husband waded through the mud and muck with a flash light to open the houses. Just after dawn we had 3 ASY males and 2 femal...

Just curious. I have 24 available "suites." (2 houses and 12 gourds). I had 19 pair last year which meant 5 vacancies. Even though my husband took out a slew of them, a couple suites were still overtaken by sparrows. I have two houses (each with 6 suites); one was occupied by a sparrow. 3 ...

Sent my excel spreadsheet to [email protected]. Should I expect any sort of confirmation that I did it correctly?

I have a late re-nesting attempt that has 4 babies. The original nest had 5 eggs that were systematically killed by sparrows. My question is how do you record this? If you keep it on the same line, the form won't allow you to record the new projected hatch date or fledge date?