Trying to get a new Martin colony

[JudyA]

It can be difficult to establish a new martin colony! I am with you and am trying too! Can we newbies, and wannabees, and others who struggled get together to tell everyone what seems to be working, and what is not?

I will go first.

My history:
I had one pair in 2007. In 2008 they did not return. In 2015, I got fired up with two pairs that almost stayed but then left.

Here's what we have done for this year:
We cleared out trees to give them a better flight path. We installed a new house (T-14) with large apartments and we made nest boxes in each apartment with pine straw.

Most effective to bring them in:
We played the dawn song. It did not seem to do much when we played it from 4-6 am. When we played it mid-morning around 9-11 am for about 1.5 hours (playing the CD from start to stop) they have usually come. We only play once (I think it is about 1.5 hours). We have only played it to bring them in. Once they are in, we let it end. Once we had a male, we quit playing (we will go back to playing if he leaves).

How is it working:
It is looking pretty hopeful for me with 8 martins staying for the night tonight.

If anyone wants to share, I would enjoy reading your responses. This is where we are at, and I will share our progress.

- Judy

[taxidermy lady]

I think the key words is cutting trees! I've cut down so many I lost count. This is my fourth year trying and each year I had a male but no females would stay. Last year a pair stayed, built a nest, gathered green leaves, and I could have bet my right arm she layed an egg. She was in the gourd for at least 45 min. And he was out on the perch just a singing. But nope. They left that weekend. So I moved my whole setup further out away from shed and tree line. I'm about 150' away from the nearest tree now. The further away from trees the better their chances are to escape from Hawks! So here I am again. Another year. Good luck

[avesrun]

5th year trying at my home. Have done everything except clear cutting a line of trees that's behind my home. I'm convinced that martins need a fairly WIDE open space to get started unless you're extremely lucky or live near a high Martin population which I do not. I've cut more trees and moved housing further out into an open field for this season. We shall see what shakes this season. I've had a fair number of visitors every season. Agree with mama bruff that it takes that one sy male with a strong instinct to pioneer a new site. I do feel a LITTLE better for this season. But bottom line is a site needs to be as open as you can get it! Good luck everyone!
Time

[William A]

Very good observations, hello Sharon. After over ten years, decided to move all housing to within 25 feet from a vacant house on the property. I spend many hours in and around the house. That very year they started staying and increasing in numbers every year. In my opinion, the martins like housing close to buildings with lots of human activity. Good luck to all this year.

[rrmartins]

Due too a small backyard, my T14 is only 12ft from my back porch, set at 17ft., so they can shoot over the roof. I also have three dogs running under their house. Human activity makes them feel safer, I think. We were lucky and had them our first year, Good luck.

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

I think martins want it all. Doesn't everybody. Wide open flight paths, protection from preditors, access to water and human activity. These are the most curious birds I've ever seen. They like to keep tabs on what's going on. Ours is an in town colony, part of an old site from many years ago. Close to houses, garages, trees.....not the best by any stretch of the imagination. But lots of human activity. We do what we can to protect them and God willing they will return and stay. You just never know. Right now all I have to do is act like I'm doing something near the housing and they swoop in from nowhere to keep an eye on me. So cutting down trees and opening up the area is great and most desired, but your right William, these birds like people around.

[Sue P]

Judy, one thing that seemed to help attract our first martins was to hang gourds off the T-14. Also, smearing mud on all of the cavity openings seems to help --- maybe they think someone else has been there before them.

Good luck. I read all of your posts, and you received a lot of good information.

Sue P

[taxidermy lady]

Hi Tim, I will have to say it takes a brave female more than the brave male. I have had males stay every year since I started.
She came but never stayed with the male. I'm working on trying to make that female feel safe. Maybe this year?

Hi William, Yes I agree they love activity. I watched the house in town, martins lined up on a power line watching the homeowner across the street mow his grass. I think I helped things out by moving my site away from the shed and trees. The shed is next to the tree line bordering my property. A hawk can hide in the trees behind shed and get a great head start on the Martin before it sees the hawk. I've thought so hard my head hurts!
My garden is next to the site. When I'm not in my shop, I'm outside. I think trees have been my problem with the females. The trees were always at a legal distance. But to close for comfort. So we'll see what happens. All I can do is my best. Good luck

Good luck rrmartins!

Hi Larry and Judy, yeah I think if there is enough activity around your site the trees and buildings does not bother them. I am out in the country no one around and they want openness. The more open it is the safer they feel. I'm going to move my fleshing board outside if they come! good luck to all. All we can do is the best we can do and what we have to work with.

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

Sharon.
I'm sure the martins will love watching you while you work. A number of years ago they lined up on a power line to watch me paint an upstairs bedroom (curtains off). Our neighbour says they watch him in his third story office window. Lol.

[JudyA]

Great to hear so many ideas from everyone. It seems that in many cases, trees have been sited as the cause of people's problems. I have noticed this year so far that I am getting more lookers on the North side of my T-14 which is away of my home and activity; it has a clear flight path for about 300 feet. On the South side, in my my view, I have trees about 40 feet away and I get less interest. It seems that clear spaces rule!

Sharon, I think you nailed it that the males start the colony, but the female has to feel safe enough to go with it! I am observing that daily!!! I lost one of the believer females today

Sue, I might hang some gourds next year from my house, but only if I can grow some big enough. I have some seeds that I haven't planted yet. I did not smear any mud as has been often advised because I can't stand to do so after I went through so much trouble to make the house beautiful; I have been seeing plenty of interest from ASY birds and have an alpha male ASY who is very determined. Unfortunately, today he became a widower and is now searching for a new lady.

Larry, you are right that they want it all! I have been trying to make sure that they see me and I do not act threatening. We lowered the house today to fix a problem (related to my widower martin), and my three currently dedicated birds were circling above us and complaining. I think that is a good sign. Is it ????

rrmartins, It looks like you are successful with the house very close to your home! I'll bet the dogs would have stopped a hawk from trying to surprise any unsuspecting birds to the ground to grab them. They wouldn't have enough space to do it! I had a hawk attack today!

William and several others have confirmed that they want to see human activity. I am just trying to figure out why they alarm when I lower their house (ha ha).

Tim, You're going to get them this year and I think you will be out of the wannabee club!

Arggh!!! I had a hawk take one of my girls today in front of my eyes! This can be very upsetting!

- Judy

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

JudyA
Most everyone has experienced a hawk attack, it's what happens when you have a bunch of noisy birds attracting attention to themselves. We try to be "hawk aware" when doing things right under their housing, as it momentarily distracts them. Circling can mean they are on guard, especially after an attack. Really upsetting to have one grabbed right in front of you. Coopers are so fast that there just is no reaction time. Sorry for your loss. We do what we can with decoys and hawk patrol at critical times during the day. Can't be there all the time. I do still feed other birds because I've found grackles and jays are great lookouts.
Your doing quite well with your site. You've done a lot of homework. Don't get too down....looks like a great year going for you. Best of luck.

[MichaelH]

Well good luck Judy A havin 8 staying the night a good colony stater for sure ,.
I have some tress about 40 ft from my colony ,they are in the alley and can't be removed the maple Is a big tree ,and the pines prob 50 ft tall I have grackles nesting in the pines every year ,good lookout birds I guess .
I built a chicken shed and a run right by the site and they didn't seem to care even when I was nailing shingles on the roof .my first gourd rack prob about 30 ft from my roof line and my pool is prob 50ft away and can get noisy in the summer ,I too have 2 dogs ,and even with all that had 2 pairs and lots of visitors so for me the trees or the activity didn't bother them so I agree that they like human close by and get used to a lot of activity ,but I too played the dawn song a lot and shoot s and s .,have power lines right by the trees and they love perching on them too.,hoping you and everybody have a great season
Mick

[Insectivore Villa]

Let me start by saying you wannabes are awesome, such dedication, you deserve PMs. I agree with everything the more experienced people are saying, they know more than I do for sure. PM love people, activity, security, etc. when we first started my sons then age 11&12 had a trampoline 25 feet from the houses and I am still not sure who was watching who more, the kids to the birds or the other way around. The only thing I can add to the wannabe club list is water...my colony does not have to beat their wings five times to take a drink or a bath, they just glide down from their house to the pond. Might be the factor that got us started, then addicted to being a PM landlord. We even got rid of the bass in the pond when they started to try to intercept the birds when they took a dip (never seen that one coming). We dug a second pond late 2014 and now it is mayhem on those warm summer evenings. No more fish in either pond, just frogs and dragonfly nymphs from now on. We can't really weigh in on predation as we have very few(2 maybe) hawk attacks, maybe one owl encounter in six years, no snakes,coons or possums because of the dogs, so no input there, sorry.
Stay with it, your efforts will be rewarded, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

hahaha...the image of martins watching the kids on the trampoline...I can picture that!...so true and so funny
Larry and Judy

[taxidermy lady]

Super story, I am hoping my new roof gets put on this spring. Maybe with that activity it will get their attention. I've been waitin over a year. Not sure what carpenters do with their time I will be taking a wall out of shop and expanding to the end of the shed. That will be about 40' from them. It will be real loud when we cut the tin for the new Windows! Let's just hope they come and stay. I should have several weeks yet. Turning chilly for a while now. Good luck to all!

[JudyA]

Larry, I am guilty of not having a decoy on the house when it happened. A few days ago I took the decoys down because I was seeing lots of martins fly over, but not land. I thought they might have been waiting until the house was empty to investigate so I removed the decoys. When two couples had become established, I forgot about using the decoys to confuse hawks. After yesterday's attack, I recalled that people on the forum used decoys to help with hawk attacks and we put a decoy back on the house.

About an hour ago I saw a hawk attempt to snatch the decoy! It must have been pretty surprised when the martin it grabbed couldn't be carried away! I glad that no other martins were around at the time. Today, we are going to put another decoy on the house and keep moving them around. I like your idea about doing a hawk patrol. Both attacks have been around the same time. I have lots of jays, but they let me down. Maybe they will become better alarms when they start nesting.

Mick, only three stayed the night last night. I think several of the 8 that stayed were just passing through. They came in quietly, and were gone in the morning.

Henry, Bass were going after your martins? Did they think they were bugs hitting the water? I don't have water in my yard, but there are lakes and ponds close by in all directions. I told my husband that when the weather gets hot, I want to rig up a mister so the birds can fly through and cool down.

[BW Fowler]

Judy,

Great post! I agree with everything the experts have to say about starting a new colony. I am fortunate to live in a martin paradise here in central TX, so that I can attract birds even with 4 large trees ~ 40 feet away and water at least 1/4 mile away. I tried for about 5 years during a horrendous drought with no luck (2009 - 2013). I think all the small ponds and the creek that is 1/4 mile away were all dry back then. For the last 2.5 years, there has been rain. Two years ago I started offering gourds with tunnels and putting pine straw in as pre-nests. I think that helped also. Last year I had 7 pair, all nesting in gourds with tunnels. This year I have added tunnels to my 4 remaining super-gourds (the kind of Conley II tunnel adaptors the PMCA store sells).

There are many, many Great Horned Owls around here in my semi-rural area. Fortunately, I have not had any owl attacks that I know of, but, as a precaution, this year I put owl guards on all the gourds.

I understand how hard it is to lose a martin to a hawk right in front of your eyes, I've been there (https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/view ... 74#p243574). But these are resilient birds, and they learn to stay alert and keep watch. Once you get multiple pairs, there is almost always an "eye in the sky," and they quickly sound the alert for those perched on the housing to bug-out. After the first one I lost early last year, I think I may have only lost one more that season (a paired-up male just stopped showing up to roost with his mate). Fortunately, a SY male took his place in about a week.

I still have a Coopers hawk patrolling the area. I usually only see it once a day, but I'm sure it must make several attack attempts per day. I saw it twice today already! It flies through quickly and comes and goes very fast most of the time. In other cases, it will fly into a large oak tree ~ 40 feet from the gourd rack, and then "sneak" across to the other side of the tree, the side where the gourd rack is. It is rarely successful, thank goodness, but it is very persistent. Right now I have about 10 martins hanging around. There is almost always a patrol overhead. As soon as they see the hawk approaching, they sound the alarm and all the birds above the hawk swoop down and mob it, harassing it as it flies away. I also feed songbirds. There is a lot of debate on this forum as to whether this is a good idea or not, but I think it is OK since the songbirds can help sound the alarm and since the hawk has other options to attack. I also use decoys: dove decoys that I position around the perimeter of my site; and two martin decoys on the gourd rack. I try to move both around as much as possible. The dove decoys really seemed to work well last year. I hope they keep working, but this morning the hawk I saw coming through flew right past it without even looking twice. Time to move it I guess.

Best of luck to all!
BW

[JudyA]

BW, you are on the mark!!! I read your story on the link you provided and it brought out so many thoughts that have been going through my head! Hope you don't mind me posting the link: https://www.purplemartin.org/forum/view ... 74#p243574.

Thank you for sharing YOUR tragic story! Good luck to you always!!!

- Judy

[Insectivore Villa]

Judy, our fish wre "tamed" meaning we had them for a long time before the martins. We could hand feed them worms, snakes, sunfish, we even saw the large female (5 maybe 6 lbs) take a red wing blackbird off of a cattail reed one day. So when the tree swallows and purple martins came to our house, we noticed that when they take a bath they are often hitting the water two three times in a row and they hit the water and kind of stick there for a split second. If by chance they were close to the big girl, she would swirl or chase them in an attempt. We had a terrible winter four years ago, lost most of the fish, so we caught and then released the remainders back to where they came from, we figured let's not tempt the fate of an amazing bird that just flew 5000 miles in a fight for its life, only to risk its life every time it went for a bath. Do I miss the bass? Kinda.. Do I love my PMs? Oh yeah I do..if the 70 plus starlings and 50 plus dead HOSP's I got this year could talk, they would tell you. Love my V top trap AND my Benali 20 pump.
Be social with your birds...remember the saying at church, move the piano one inch at a time and no one notices, so we did that with patio chairs and the housing. It takes about three or four weeks, but you can sit within 15 feet of them after a month or so, and I believe they can tell the difference between my wife and I, they are more comfortable with her because when I get too close i am either lowering the house or cutting the lawn. Elaine is just there too enjoy a glass of wine or a cup of tea...
Hope it goes well for all of us this year.

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

We waited until mid-afternoon when all the martins were out feeding to lower one of the houses to open more compartments. Once we began taking down the guard they dropped out from nowhere to check us out. Oh, okay, it's only my people messing with my stuff...hmmm about time they opened those...well gotta get back to da bugs. Then they're gone again. Yeah, they know who their people are and tolerate us quite well.
Hawk came by earlier, but the grackles spied him first. Extra seed for them this evening. Got to work on more decoys. Fact of life for martin people. Wishing everyone success this year.
On a side note....has anyone ever had their site blessed? I think about it occasionally, after all other things and critters get blessed. Okay now ..don't laugh...just another nutty thing we landlords think about.
Larry and Judy