Purple Martin Forum

A few more showed up today but no where near the usual numbers. Have looked at the houses down our road and not many birds there either.

so nice to go out on the back deck this morning and hear their morning song. Hope this pair are joined soon by others. Keeping my eyes open..............

:grin: Saw the first arrivals on our martin house this evening. I still had the doors on and the house had been lowered for the winter season. Needless to say I rushed right out and opened the doors and raised the house up. It didn't take too long before they were back checking out the house. I worr...

Glad he left empty handed!

I really enjoyed watching those videos........... had no idea they could eat a dragonfly that huge.

After a slow start to the season we are doing very well. We have two nests with eggs, one with 3 (used to have 4 but I found an egg on the ground this morning and will try to attach a picture) and a second nest with 4 eggs. As well we have three other full nests with fresh leaves waiting for eggs (I...

saw our first pair of Purple Martins here today and as I ran outside to take off the doors to the house I could hear them! So good to have them back and as it was getting so late in the season, I worried they would not come back at all this year. Guess with the terrible spring, they took their time ...

still waiting............ been so cold and windy this year. I keep hoping that each day will bring some warmth and the return of the Martins and other spring birds.

I was outside working in the garden this afternoon when I heard Martins chirping. I saw two martins flying about the martin house and zipping all around the property and swooping along the river. I had left the doors on the house to keep the sparrows out so ran to take the house down and remove the ...

I'm getting really worried. No sign of any birds around my place yet and I've checked neighbour's houses too and they do not appear to have any birds. All the other spring birds have arrived back safe and sound. I am really missing them.

So glad to hear you finally got some birds. So far, here, we are still looking for ours. Not a sign of one yet. Weather is slowly warming up so they should be here soon.

Still no sign of Martins here. However the Tree Swallows, Killdeer, Robins have returned so perhaps the Martins will arrive in the next few days. It has warmed here, slightly, but we are supposed to get rain for the next 5 days. Spending a lot of time at my window with the binoculars glued to my fac...

Here in Southern Ontario Canada I have not seen one single Martin yet this year. We have had a very cold spring so perhaps that has slowed down the migration. Just wondering what the farthest Northern point you have the Martins at the present time. I am anxiously awaiting them to see how our second ...

Saw some Martins at the nest early this morning (before 6 am) but then it was really quiet and I thought our last baby had fledged this morning. Went out and did a nest check and all babies had left the nest. Sure am going to miss those guys. Hope that next year we have all 12 compartments filled wi...

Talk about patience! :shock: We live not too far away in Ontario and this year have our first pair with 4 babies. We have only lived in this rural location for three years and put up our martin house the first summer we were here. Our babies should fledge around the end of the month so it is an exci...

Our four babies are growing well. Checked them again this morning and they now have feathers! I think it will be another two weeks before they fledge. Will miss all the activity around here when they are gone.

I was just going to add that information to my post. Every time I go out to check the nest there are about 4 - 10 martins dive bombing my head. I wondered where these birds were coming from and who they were as I only have 1 nesting pair here. Thanks for the information.

Great pictures. Thanks for posting them as I've never seen a baby before.

:grin: We are so happy! Yesterday while doing my regular house check I heard little tiny peeps and when I opened the door I would see the top of two little heads .......... there are still two more eggs so I hope they hatched later in the day or will hatch today. Our house went up in 2010 when we ha...

:grin: Went out today to check the nests and pull out the sparrow nesting mess. I had done it on Friday and although there were 3 'juvenile" nests and 1 mature nest there were no leaves in the nest and no sign of eggs. Today when I lowered the nest I saw one little egg on the ledge of the house...