DawnSong Repost

[jhcox]

I never got any answers from my last post. I have the dawn song playing in the morning from 4am to 8am. The. From 11am to 1pm. And again from 6pm to dusk. Is this a good aproachto playing it or should I play it dawn till dusk. This is my 5th year trying to start a new colony. JHCox Heiskell TN

[Danclodfelter]

Fifth year trying to start a colony in Tennessee kind of says something in Tennessee. The state of Tennessee is covered up with purple martins . Do you have a mentor?? Someone who has purple martins that’s been around the block a time or two ? I played mine from dawn until dusk years ago when I first was starting a colony . It didn’t take anytime at all in Indiana. I’m wondering if something is bothering the martins at your site that doesn’t look attractive to them . A good Martin person ( mentor) will pick right up on this . Just wondering? Plenty of mentors are in Tennessee area . Victor Stoll in Finger helped me along with several others like Therman Seber . Victor is gone now but Therman and plenty others are still around . Victor Stolls family is still posting they have martins .

[Danclodfelter]

I looked you up and saw you are 5 hours and 4 minutes from Finger Tennessee. That’s probably a little far for inviting a mentor over . You could post a new topic on this forum and get plenty of mentor’s to pipe in if you posted the topic to be “ Tennessee Mentors “ . Also plenty of good knowledge is on here if you could describe your set up or even post pictures?? Maybe it’s my two cents but something doesn’t sound right for you not to have a colony up and running by now in Tennessee. What kind of houses are you supplying for your martins ? Do you have trees close to your set up ?

[rrmartins]

How far is the nearest water?

[Courtney-NC]

Hi there, re: the Dawnsong playing, when I was trying to get martins, I played it from 6am-11am. If I played it after that, it didn't seem to work to bring in the visitors, for me. It just seemed like visiting hours were mostly in the morning.You will get differing opinions on it. Some will say only to play it from 4am-6am and then switch to Daytime chatter, and that method works for some. The Daytime Chatter did not bring in lookers in my experience, but it might for you. Others will say to switch it off because it attracts hawks, and it might. On the other hand, if you are constantly playing dawnsong, the hawks might start ignoring it once they realize it's not real. I will say that if you get a visiting martin while playing it, turn the volume down while the visitor is there.
Other tips/ideas:
You can have a good site and it can still sometimes take years to get a colony started (it took me 9 years, and martins are relatively scarce in my area). If you are sure that your location is good, then you'll need to be patient. In order to get a colony, you need martins looking for housing. Sometimes martins will just 'go visiting' and aren't looking for housing at that time. If there are no martins in your area actively seeking new housing, then it makes it a lot harder to get a colony started.
In order for there to be extra martins looking for housing, there needs to be one of the following:

1. A nearby colony that produces lots of HYs each year, and enough of them survive to come back as SYs.
2. The nearby colony fills up and the overflow martins have to go somewhere.
3. The nearby colony 'collapses' or reduces its available cavities, resulting in martins needing a new site.

In my case, I couldn't get a pair to stay until the nearby landlord took down 4 of his gourds for repair, and never put them back up. I got his extra birds that year. Forced dispersal!
If you haven't done so already, try putting up the same type of housing that the nearest (successful) landlord is using. For example, if the other guy uses unpainted natural gourds with no porch, hang one of those.
If you want to get a satellite view of your property from Google Earth and post it here, folks can give you recommendations as to how appropriate your location might be. Sometimes it helps to get a fresh perspective.

[jhcox]

JHCox here I have tried the mentor thing with out any luck I called all the numbers I could fined for mentors in my area again no luck. Right now I have 12 bo9 S&K gourds and 12 Super gourds and a 16 room S&K house that I have closed the 4 attic rooms off on and enlarged the other rooms so it only has 6 extra large cavities. I have decoys on perches and nesting decoys and a couple with mirrors in them. I have them on 2 acres of cleared land no large tress within well over 100 feet from the setup. There are open fields across the street and next door to my property. There are phone and cable lines with in 20 to 30 feet from the site for them to perch on. I also kill all the house sparrows and starlings I can. And as far as all the active sites that I can find near me they are over 15 to 20 miles from me. And they appear to be using only gourds. all and any help!! would be appreciated. I have tried to post photos with out any luck but im not very good with computers. But I will try to get some help on getting some on here for you guys and girls to see and give me input on. Thanks again JHCox Heiskell TN

[jhcox]

JHCox I also have several ponds and a creek within 1/4 of a mile from my house.

[Danclodfelter]

I agree with Courtney, great advice . I forgot , I did switch to using the daytime chatter once it got to be around 9:00 am and I played it all day . I have a large super colony and have experimented a lot with calling in Purple Martins . I used a loud speaker pointed up in the air , similar to what you see at a fairgrounds. Purple Martins will hear this for quite a distance and even land on the speaker and look down inside the speaker . I also have called in Purple Martins during the migration back south with this speaker after all of my martins were long gone . Migration Martins would come into the speaker by the hundreds at one time . These Martins I believe will bring the sub adult Martins to your place and they remember your place this way . A mentor named Thurman Seber in Finger Tennessee has a favorite saying he told me years ago . “ IT TAKES MARTINS TO GET MARTINS “. It does sound like you have a beautiful set up and a great location. This I’m about to say sounds very odd and I don’t have a reason for this but here it is . Several people have wanted me to visit an area they have been trying to get a colony started, after they have given up . I have gone to the property’s on several times and saw and pointed out Martins to them . This is why I suggested getting a mentor to visit . It’s almost as if the purple Martins know that a purple martin man or woman when they see one ?? I know this sounds unusual and I don’t have a reason for this . I can list others who know for a fact that purple martins recognize certain things about humans . Read Troyers new book and you will see the story’s that say the same thing . I have traveled the United States to study this bird and learned a lot from the Amish . I spend a lot of quality time with the purple Martins and when I first started my colony, I believed if I dressed like the Amish , I would get martins . Did it help ? I believe so , it didn’t hurt . To this day , every time I step out to walk around my colony, I have a straw hat on .

[paule]

I never got any answers from my last post. I have the dawn song playing in the morning from 4am to 8am. The. From 11am to 1pm. And again from 6pm to dusk. Is this a good aproachto playing it or should I play it dawn till dusk. This is my 5th year trying to start a new colony. JHCox Heiskell TN

jhcox,
When I was trying to attract them I played the dawn song from 4am to 9am. If I was home I might turn it on to see if any were around. Seldom were there any. From back in the day I was told you wanted to attract any that may be flying over before dawn. After loosing my first colony due to cold and rain, it took seven years to start another. One subadult male started staying one whole year. The next year I believe to be the same bird went to the same cavity. He attracted a few friends but no stayers. The third year same cavity and brought more visitors. Didn't see him for weeks and all of a sudden I had a pair in that cavity. I always believed it was the same male and he became the founding father of my colony. I remember your posts from last year and you have had visitors. I was always rooting for your success. One thing I have been wondering about. Do you have pole predication guards? I didn't used to believe they were necessary until I already had birds. I now believe that to be wrong. New skidish bird and something trying to climbing or scratching a pole would not be good. I now believe the sooner the better.
Hope you have success this year.
Paul

P.S. May the future be so bright you gotta wear shades!

[taxidermy lady]

This is my 2 cents worth! You need to post a google earth picture of your property! This gives the experts an idea what is the most open for your setup, when I started whacking trees for 5 yrs I finally got my first pair last year! Open, open, open! It’s all about location when your trying to attract! Ok that’s my 2 cents worth! Good luck! I for sure know how you feel!

Let us know what your using for internet, iPad is what I use! We can help! Taking a picture from google earth is easy with an iPad! Let us know!

[flyin-lowe]

My first colony took exactly 5 years to start in Indiana. A few years later we moved and we have had a pair or two of SY's on and off. Last year I had three SY pair that I hope at least some of them will return this year as ASY's. My move was in 2012 so last year was 5 years again. Seems to be a very common number unless you live further south, TN is kind of in the middle as I would see it. There are lots of martins there but it would not be unheard of to go 5 years starting out, especially if there are not a lot of colonies near by to draw SY's from.

[randyM]

jhcox,

Have you had martins visit your site during the past 5 years? If so, what time of year (spring, summer, or fall) and how long did they stay? Do you have any other competing cavity nesting birds (wrens, blue birds, swallows, etc.) in other single housing units nearby that may be chasing visiting martins away?

I live in northcentral South Dakota near the western breeding range of purple martins and tried to attract martins for 10 years at an ideal location (on a large lake, with few trees and miles upon miles of native grasslands around my rural home). I played the dawn song CD daylong from early spring through early summer and then again in late summer and early fall. I placed a dozen martin decoys around my housing. I had scout martins stop by my site nearly every spring and fall. However, I had multiple nesting tree swallows and bluebirds in single housing units near my martin housing. In the spring any scouting martin that would stop to investigate my the martin housing would be harassed by the tree swallows and blue birds and would not stay for more than 15 minutes and would not return. In the fall, I had martins visit during their southward migration and some would return for a few days in a row and were not harassed by swallows because the nesting season and associated territorial behavior had subsided. I can count on 1 hand the number of small martin colonies (less than 5 pairs) within 20 miles of my home, and it's over 60 miles to an area that has multiple colonies with more than 5 pairs. A few years ago I finally had a SY male tolerate the harassment of the swallows and blue birds and stayed the summer. He came back the next year and attracted an ASY female. The fledged 4 young. Last year I had 4 nesting pairs and 10 floating SY males that stayed most of the nesting season. The swallows and blue birds have now accepted martins as part of the local breeding bird community and I'm hopeful my colony continues to grow. If I were you, I'd play the dawn song or chatter CD all season, dawn until dusk. You don't have anything to lose by playing the CDs to attract the attention of a passing or curious martin.

Best of luck to you...hang in there, sounds like you're doing most everything correctly - eventually a martin or two will find your location to their liking and set up shop there!

[ldybala]

One thing I will try this year after trying for several years in a vacation home I have in Northern Arkansas is offer round holes with small 6x6 cavities. I've only been offering Starling Resistant entrances in my gourds and houses and everyone in the area is using only round holes. I would be afraid to offer round holes with large cavities, as this would be probably attract Starlings, which are very numerous. Remember, houses used to have small cavities before Starling Resistant entrances as a Starling preventative, as they do not like small cavities.

I still have 3/4 of my birds nesting in my unmodified Treo Castle with round holes in my Houston, TX colony. Everything else has Starling Resistant entrances with large cavities, and the gourds with tunnels. Slowly, they are moving into these other cavities. But very slowly.

[jhcox]

Thank you everyone for all of the advice. Randym i have had for the last 3 years a few birds stop by for an hour or two and off thru would go. They would do that every day for about 2 weeks and then gone. Thats in the spring and it would happen again in the fall. Now last year i had one adult male that would stay all night in one gourd for about a month or so. He would have subadult males come be every so often but thats it. Then in the fall of last year I would see about 10 high on the power line on the property next door adult males and females. I saw them for close to a week every day then they were gone.

[jhcox]

Taxedermylady I am not very computer savvy but I will attempt to find some one who can help me do the google earth photo and try to put it on here. And I will attempt to get some photos on here too. Thanks

[jhcox]

Danclodfelter I would love for someone in my atea to be my mentor and come by and see my PM site and tell me what it is that I’m doing wrong but like I mentioned before I haven’t had much luck in finding one as of yet. Thanks JHCox

[jhcox]

Is it permissible to add my phone number to this post? Maybe someone who mentors in the East Tennessee area could contact me. Not sure if that’s allowed or not. Don’t wamt to step on anyones toes or get into any trouble.

[Whippy]

Jhcox,

I would suggest not putting your phone number in open forum not because of any rules I don't know about rather, for the purpose of retaining your privacy.

I suggest, and hopefully someone could recommend a better way, that you post looking for a mentor then, in private, exchange information and work forward from there. There are a lot of bots that patrol forums of all kinds looking for e-mails and numbers and such to use for other purposes. Please be careful.

$0.02

I'm in my third year and am currently waiting for my 1st pair from last year to return. I am in the DFW area in Plano, TX. I play the dawn song every day at times that I am home and just about every morning. It's rained here everyday since Monday with Saturday, tomorrow, being the last day of rain for a week. There are some in the area with Martins having returned so there are birds in the area. I'm hoping to use the dawn song to pick off any passers by. When my pair returns I will cease playing the song and let them do the work. I attracted this pair using the song last year in March. At any given time last year I would have 10 Martins playing in and on the gourds with one pair ultimately staying. It sure was fun watching all the visitors during the day and, in the evening, I would sit and watch my pair come in to their gourd for the night.

Good luck to you.

Coolwhips

[jhcox]

Thanks Whippy. I must say I really loved sitting here out in the mornings and watch my lone adult male come out to great the day and in the late afternoon at dusk glide in and perch on his porch. Then quietly slip into his gourd for yhe night. Is it possible for a lone male to create site fidelity. I’m going to work on posting satellite photos today at some time. If I can get that figured out tgen I may post some general photos of the site from ground level. Thanks again JHCox Heiskell TN

[randyM]

Jhcox,

It sounds very encouraging that you had a male martin stay overnight at your location for nearly a month last year. It does indeed sound like he was mentally attached to your location and housing. I had a similar thing happen to me with a SY male a few years back to start my colony (as have others that have posted on this site). The next year he came back as an ASY male and attracted a mate to the same cavity he stayed in the year before. I can't say for certain it was the same male that returned the following year, but he chose the same compartment from the previous year. I had 8 poles with 20 cavities on each pole (gourds and wooden houses all with round holes), so odd are pretty strong it was him. Last year an ASYM and ASYF nested in the same cavity, so he has likely been at my colony for 3 years. I hope he survived the winter and makes it home again. If the male that stayed at your place survived the winter and lives through the migration north, you have a very good chance to have at least one nesting pair of martins at your site this season. Best of luck to you and please keep us posted.