SY male won't fit through starling resistant opening

[brinegarlisa]

Anyone run into this? I've double checked the deminsions and they are correct. Other birds seem to have no issues. He has been sleeping on the box porch. Any thoughts on how/if I can help some way. Sad to watch.

[Mhoover]

He probably does not get his rear end low enough. The head and shoulders can fit into the opening but he has his rear end too high. I have this problem every year if one of my birds is not familiar withe the crescent openings. He will soon learn by watching the others go in and out but it can be frustrating watching and not being able to help him.

[Jim 1990]

I have a male adult martin that has been trying for days and he still has not been able to go in . is it possible that he is a little bigger. I hate to make the crescent any bigger as I don't want starlings to get in but he tries and tries but still can not get in. The crescent is the size it should be

[Larry A Kronemeyer]

We've had two separate occasions when an asy male seemed unable to get in a crescent opening. Both times in a trendsetter, opening measurements were exact.
In each instance we observed the male spending nights on the porch, but just thought they preferred it. When it was time to feed young these males frantically tried to get in the compartment. I was truely worried that they would force themselves thru and get stuck. We tried modifying the nest tray to make plenty of slide-in room and removed the wood we had installed for raising the porch entrance. Still unable to get in.
Ok then...We modified the opening.. cutting a new, slightly larger aluminum entrance and riviting it on. We planned it all out before we lowered the house and made the exchange quickly,covering the young while we worked. Finished the job, raised the house and ..... he slid in ...'like buttah' (sigh of relief)
Maybe there are some large sized males occasionally. Happened to us twice over the years. Since it was in aluminum house we were able to correct the openenings back to original size for the next season.
Judy

[brinegarlisa]

Thanks for the feedback. I will continue to monitor.

[detioh11]

I think I lost the male from the lone pair I had last year to crescent openings also. I had a round and crescent hole open for them last year. (I have tunnels on my t14 that have both, one on top of the other). This year I had starlings invade right after he showed back up and didn't have a female yet. I plugged the round hole and left the crescent open because I didn't want the starlings to hurt him if they caught him inside his compartment. He spent a half hour trying to squeeze into the crescent opening unsuccessfully. He left that night and showed up for a couple minutes the next morning, and now I haven't seen him in 6 days. I may be back to starting over. It is hard to know what to do when all of the small colonies around me have round holes. On top of that I think an owl has struck my decoy twice in the last 4 nights. I have found the decoy upside down with a few scratches on it twice now. On the bright side I have managed to trap and shoot 3 of the 4 starlings I have seen so far.

Dennis

[threelilkids]

I too had this problem and lost a martin because of it. So instead of the Martins leaving and not come back I took a file to the opening, just a little and it was just enough to get them to stay. I have had a starling get in the crescents so I now use conley 2 plates and the Martins use them and the starlings hate them and try to chew them Good Luck, Mary