Purple Martin Forum

Jones, How close are your bluebird/tree swallow houses from each other? If you have both swallows and bluebirds nesting on your property, you could "pair" bluebird houses/tree swallow gourds within 10' of each other, with the openings being orientated in opposite directions (180 degrees). ...

MStan, If you have a well-established colony with 6 martins already occupying gourds (especially if some of the martins are ASY birds returning from last year) you shouldn't have too much to worry about regarding the success of your martin colony this year. If you have room on your property, and hav...

I had a western kingbird pair nest in a plastic heath house in the middle of my colony a number of years ago (fledged 4 of 5 young). I had over 35 pairs of martins nesting then and there were occasional squabbles between martins and the kingbirds, but they got along for the most part. Each year I ha...

The bird that built the stick nest in your bluebird box was likely a house wren. Not sure why your colony had fewer nests this year than in the recent past. Do you conduct regular nest checks during the season every 7-10 days? If so, how many nests and young fledged from your site last year?

It is not uncommon for nests to have some, or all, eggs that don't hatch or go missing. Unhatched full (or partial) clutches of eggs can be due to infertility issues with either adult. Weather conditions during incubation also (too hot, too cold, too wet, too windy) can cause some eggs to not hatch....

I'd also like to chime in and say Congratulations! I'll also emphasize the importance of house sparrow control. Even though martins and house sparrows seemed to coexist at your site this year, next year will likely be different. With your martin nesting success this year, it is likely you will have ...

Once you get a PM colony started with 3 or more pairs of martins, the tree swallow and BB problem will be resolved. Once a PM colony is established, resident martins are equally as fierce at protecting their nest sites as BB and TS are. It took me a long time (nearly 10 years) to get my martin colon...

Are both parents of the late nest second-year birds, or is at least one of them an after-second-year bird? If one (or both) parents are ASY birds, the chances of them staying with the chicks until they fledge is higher than if both are SY birds. I had an ASYF and SYM pair hatch a very late nest last...

If the tree swallows are not pestering the martins enough for the martins to leave (as is sounds like they are both building nests), I'd let them co-exist and keep cavities open in which both species were building nests. On numerous occasions I've had tree swallows nest in a gourd less than a foot a...

It's been a tough late spring weatherwise for martins and other swallows along the northern tier of their US breeding range. I suspect total overall reproductive output will be much lower than average for the segment of the purple martin breeding population in the northcentral and northeast US this ...

If you've experienced persistent cool rainy weather in your area for more than 5 consecutive days, that's likely the cause of your martin losses (limited feeding opportunities). At my colony in northern SD I recovered 51 ASY males and 33 ASY females that perished due to the prolonged cool and rainy ...

Are these nests made of mostly mud shaped like a cup stuck to the side of your house? If so, those are most likely barn swallows (a smaller relative of the purple martin). Otherwise, it would be very unusual for a martin to build a nest in the open and not in a bird house or other cavity.

Randy

We had a pretty tough stretch of cold, windy, rainy/snowy weather over 7 of the past 8 days in northeast SD and southeast ND and parts of MN with back-to back stationary low pressure systems. The local martins had it very tough with only 1 “nice” day to feed in more than a week, otherwise daytime te...

I've had luck getting birds at local colonies to start accepting flipped crickets by first flipping dragonflies to get them started and learn you're flipping food to them. Martins can't resist chasing dragonflies, and they seem to catch on to this option much faster than just flipping crickets to in...

My colony is about 500km SSW of Winnipeg in South Dakota. It took me nearly 10 years to get my colony started, but I had a very persistent tree swallow issue I did not address that I believe prevented my martin colony from getting started sooner. I played the dawn song CD sunup to sundown from ~May ...

I used the new Sevin formulation last season at my colony and had the worst mite infestation I've experienced at my site in a decade. Not sure if it was due to the year's weather or the new formulation. It was an extremely dry season at my site last year and would suspect a wet season would have mor...

I have connections to a small local diner that saves eggshells for me. When I pick up a batch from them, I rinse them and bake them in the oven at 225 degrees for 20 minutes before I crush them and put them in the freezer for storage until martin season arrives!

I begin to offer crushed eggshells and crushed oystershells at my colony when nest building begins. I offer these until the last nest at my colony has fledged. The martins seem to strongly prefer eggshells over oystershells at my site. If my trays become empty for a few days due to a strong windy sp...

I typically harvest a natural bounty of insects each summer and fall for the next year's supplemental feeding. In SD during late May and early June every third year there is a large hatch of June beetles that swarm my yard light each night for a few weeks. I'll spend an hour or so each evening befor...

I've always applied Sevin dust to each nest cavity at the beginning of the season when I pre-nest all cavities with pine needles. Nonetheless, later in the nesting season mites inevitably show up. I have a rather large colony where re-applying Sevin dust to each nest or completing nest changes is no...