Choosing the Right Housing for Purple Martins

KathyF · Mon May 05, 2014 4:14 pm

I wrote the original text of this post as a newsletter and distributed it to a bunch of Missouri landlords a few years ago. I've now updated it with some modifications and the story of my sister's colony and a different perspective.
It just goes to show that you can't predict what martins are going to do - even in deep-south Louisiana.
This one's for you sis!

http://kathyfreeze.blogspot.com/2014/05 ... urple.html

JudyAV · Mon May 05, 2014 5:33 pm

I currently have houses and decided to try the whistle gourds from S & K...(so far none of my birds have tried them). I've had a small colony for 3 years but I think next year I will begin to replace my houses with the big bo gourds with the clinger entrances. Any thoughts? Am I crazy? LOL

MamaBruff · Mon May 05, 2014 6:36 pm

Kathy there is some truth to the cheap barn house theory. I have a young friend who lives 5 miles S of me, and he has one of these houses. He has 3 pair beginning to build nests and I have none. (so far) So maybe starting out with a house like "everybody" has is a good way to get a colony going. I remember our friend Deb said that is how she started too.

Sam Harris · Mon May 05, 2014 7:14 pm

I think the birds like choices. I too started off with a plastic barn. No luck for 2 years. I added a Trio with some gourds underneath. The first pair nested in one of the gourds. I then found 2 more Trios and gave the barn to my dad. I have 3 Trios with gourds under 2 of them. The birds now seem to prefer the Trios over my gourds this year. All have expanded rooms and RC Moser's Stealth entrances. I'm am nearly full on the houses, and some subbies are looking at the gourds. The same thing happened to my dad with the old plastic barn. No martins the first year, but he added 4 plastic gourds and now he is nearly full this year. Birds like choices..

KathyF · Mon May 05, 2014 8:47 pm

JudyAV wrote:I currently have houses and decided to try the whistle gourds from S & K...(so far none of my birds have tried them). I've had a small colony for 3 years but I think next year I will begin to replace my houses with the big bo gourds with the clinger entrances. Any thoughts? Am I crazy? LOL

Judy, as long as you have the room for wide-open flyways, no, I don't think you're crazy.

But, I would replace the houses slowly - not all at once, and slowly convert your colony over. I wonder why they don't like your whistle gourds? I hear those are quite large inside, but have no personal experience with them.

KathyF · Mon May 05, 2014 8:48 pm

MamaBruff wrote:Kathy there is some truth to the cheap barn house theory. I have a young friend who lives 5 miles S of me, and he has one of these houses. He has 3 pair beginning to build nests and I have none. (so far) So maybe starting out with a house like "everybody" has is a good way to get a colony going. I remember our friend Deb said that is how she started too.

Mary, what happened to the martins that were staying at your site last week???

MamaBruff · Mon May 05, 2014 9:17 pm

We started off with a bang on Apr 15, then everybody but Romeo moved on. Migrants I am supposing. Then Romeo brought friends over but nobody would stay. About a week ago, he left too. Poor lonely fella! A pair stopped by today, but did not return. Hillbilly Martins want a barn? IDK. We'll see if Doug Martin is right about the coming wave of Martins. Otherwise I have a nice towel all ready to throw...

Art J · Mon May 05, 2014 9:26 pm

Kathy
I started with 2 houses and could only get 3 or 4 pair every year. I then started adding gourds and that's all the martins would nest in. I finally removed the houses and only have gourds now and I'm usually at least 90 percent full. I know a couple sites near me just have houses and they are usually full also, so maybe we just split the martins up, they get the house loving martins and I get the gourd loving martins.

Nikkidodi - SATX · Tue May 06, 2014 8:07 pm

The first year I put up 4 Heritage Farms Quad Pods and there were no takers. Second year I added 4 Troyer gourds (one below each pod) and again had no takers. Third year, last year, I had one pair set up housekeeping in a gourd and fledged 5 young'uns (from 5 eggs). This year, Mr Martin returned on March 13th and soon others followed.

The original pair claimed their gourd and within 2 more gourds were claimed by Martins. The fourth gourd was guarded by a sparrow. I tore the sparrow's nest on a daily or every other day basis for nearly a month and twice with an egg hidden in the mess. The sparrow finally has given up.

I removed the perches (which also serve as predator guards and exercise bars) from the interior of two of the Quad Pods to see if maybe that was deterring the Martins. But on Apr 21, there were 2 nests in the Quad Pods that still the interior predator guard, so I replaced the other two and now all four Pods are occupied and contain eggs. Only gourd #4 that the sparrow was trying to occupy does not have eggs at this time. The others (so far) contain 6,6,5,5,4,3 &2 ea. for a total 31 eggs in the 7 nests.

5/8 Update: 3 babies appeared overnight.