Purple Martin Forum

Each year until mid-Sept I have migrating martin stragglers stop by my colony as I keep my housing up until around the third week of Sept. in case any migrating martins are looking for a place to nest the following year. Many times a lone martin or two will stop by for a brief visit along with a gro...

I had a very late nest at my colony this year in South Dakota. An ASY female paired with a SY male.... likely a renesting attempt for the ASY female. She laid 3 eggs beginning on July 13 and 2/3 hatched on July 30. By Aug 18 all other late nests at my site had fledged their young and her SY male com...

Early nesting martins at my colony usually use lilac bush leaves as they are the first leaves available at my site. Later nests have green ash and elm leaves. There are a few cottonwood trees nearby, but have never seen a cottonwood leaf in a martin nest at my site. Last year was a cold and late spr...

Tree swallows are indeed a good addition in close proximity to an existing martin colony. I have 125 single-unit nest boxes and gourds around the perimeter of my 40-ac property, 10 of which are within 90 feet of my martin housing. I usually have about 100 tree swallow nests each year. Between the tr...

CC Martins, my site is very open in all directions and all 15 house/gourd units are the same height (10-13') above ground level. The first early arriving birds at my site usually initially occupy the top 1 or 2 floors of my wooden houses, but as a few more dozen martins arrive they inhabit all 4 lev...

I've had nests in the past with 11 and 10 eggs. For the 11-egg nest, none hatched whereas the 10-egg nest 4 hatched. My assumption is that a second pair (or at least a second female) took over these nests perhaps due to the original female of the nest dying and the developing embryos in the incubati...

I have a large colony (150+ pairs) and band 150 young each year. Over the past few years I've had about 10 nesting pairs where both individuals of the pair were banded. The following year the banded individuals that returned never paired again with the same banded mate. I have 15 different house/gou...

I had some luck trapping and shooting HOSP this weekend....3 males and 2 females....still have a few pairs to remove as I only have 2 traps and about 7 HOSP nests in some of my 120 tree swallow houses. When I catch a sparrow in a nest box that has a started HOSP nest, I terminate the sparrow and pla...

I checked my tree swallow houses yesterday and found a nearly complete sparrow nest in one of the nest boxes. When I pulled the sparrow nest out of the box there was a partially built tree swallow nest underneath with a dead female swallow in the nest. Her head was partly defeathered with dried bloo...

It is still pretty early for returning adult martins in the northern parts of their nesting range. I've had years when there were fewer than 10 adult martins at my well established site until the 1st of May. After that date dozens of new arrivals would show up at my colony each day. Around the 21st ...

Moving a gourd or house with eggs or young even to the other side of your yard would likely result in the abandonment of the gourd or house by the parents, and eggs would never hatch and the nestlings would die due to starvation. Even if the young in a gourd or house you'd move miles away from the o...

Welcome back to the Forum! The martins that are currently finding their way to your latitude are 5 year-old birds or older, which are typically the first of the season to arrive in respective areas. Most of the early returning martins likely are headed to the colony they were at in previous years. A...

I had 2 ASY males show up on April 6 with strong south winds and temps in the 60's. Fast forward to the morning of April 8 with an inch of snow and temps around 30. I now have 4 ASY males at my site. Tried flipping grasshoppers and crickets I collected last fall on the evening of the 7th and one rea...

The person who has the colony will likely need to register their name and colony location on the PMCA website as you originally did with your colony location, and then use that link to report the scout arrival date (or you could register all their info on their behalf if they are not handy with the ...

During the entire history of my colony (433 nests over 8 years), 49% of nesting martin pairs have been ASY male with ASY female, 21% of nesting pairs have been ASY male with SY female, 28% of nesting pairs have been SY male with SY female, and only 2% of nesting pairs have been SY male with ASY fema...

My colony is in a very rural area, with the nearest city and martin colonies being at least 25 miles away. I have observed a few birds banded at my site at colonies 25 and 40 miles away. I've also seen numerous banded birds from my site at a small (n=~2000) pre-migratory roost about 30 miles north o...

I band young-of-the-year martins (prior to fledging) at my colony each year and have a return rate the following spring of about 19%. I have plenty of available nest cavities at my site, so any returning birds that want to nest have ample cavities from which to choose. Interestingly, 63% of the SY b...

I've been using a 12-gauge shotgun to eliminate house sparrows and starlings visiting my housing since the start of my colony years ago. I use non-toxic steel shot #7 and only shoot when I have a clear line of sight with no martins within 10 yards. I can knock out intruders from 45+ yards away usual...

That depends on what you mean by "started"....I had a SY male stay at my colony for the entire month of June in 2015. I had a few other visitors that year, but none that stayed for more than an hour or so. In May of 2016 an ASY male stopped in at my colony and, without hesitation, went dir...

Hang in there. I took me nearly 10 years to get a stable colony going at my place. Seven years later I'm up to 157 nesting pairs this year. If you have good quality site, they will eventually inhabit your housing.

Best of luck!

Randy