Chicadee Interference Redux

[ToyinPA]

Your SY could still find a mate. Lots of time left yet & many still migrating. If you see more martins at your housing or flying about I'd open a couple rooms on the east side. The east side gets less afternoon sun.

You will never get rid of all the HS, but you can lower the amount by destroying their eggs. To do that you either shake them good & put them back or boil them a few minutes, let them cool to room temp & put them back. No hatching no HS chicks. Just so you know....HS eggs are speckled. Martin eggs are pure white. You can try to chase the HS off by removing their nesting material, but only if they are just starting to build. Once built if you remove it or destroy eggs they will take it out on the martins. The more martins you have the more they will chase off the HS.

Toy in PA

[daveh]

Sight that gun in and shoot those sparrows. Leave compartments open that are easy to target. Get a blind and set it up at a distance you are accurate at and wait. You kill them and they won't come back. THere will be more . You kill them also. It's ongoing but eventually you will thin them down. I've been doing martins for many years. I have around 65-70 pair plus lots of extra single martins every year. I kill 6-12 sparrows on average each year . If I didn't control the sparrow I probably wouldn't have much of a colony. They are evil birds that torment and kill my martins.

Dave

[gotham]

June 12 Update-Sad and disappointing news.

I have what, for me, is very disappointing news. "Our" purple martins have gone!

On Wednesday, June 9 the martins left in the early afternoon, as they had been doing (presumably, as Toy mentioned, to feed). Unusually, they had not returned by late evening.

Early the morning of Thursday, June 10, about 6 AM, a pair of martins landed on the bottom balcony. One sat on that balcony, at the mouth of the cavity opening, for awhile. He then flew off and we have seen no martin at our Lonestar Alamo since (more than 48 hours ago)

There have been no hawks or owls in the area. Miraculously, there has been no recent harassment from HOSPs or Starlings. This morning I lowered the house and inspected the two open cavities and saw no dead birds, blood, mites or other signs of trouble. I found it interesting that there was no bird poop within the compartments (do they avoid fouling their cavities?). There was no sign they had tried building a nest as in the nest trays there were only the dry pine needles and few leaves I had provided as "prenesting" material (see "gone").

I wonder if they were just trying our house out for a few days and then simply decided that, rather than build a home on their own in our martin house, they would join the busy colony on the neighboring property. I am puzzled and would appreciate hearing whether those of you with experience have any other suggestions as to what may have happened.

I have now opened the last of the three compartments we have with round holes (added a couple of seasons ago after a martin pair had tried unsuccessfully to get through our SREHs , given up and never returned). I have placed some more pine needles in the nest trays. I am now playing the Dawn Song, keeping my pellet air rifle at the ready to deal with HOSPs and Starlings and continuing to hope. I no longer have much of that last ingredient, though.

Gotham

[Martintown33]

When I first switched to sreh years ago, my martins took several days to learn how to get in. But if they want that compartment, they will keep trying til they get in. Traction tape definitely helps. Eventually all of my colony learned to use the sreh. Some take longer than others, but in my experience, they all will learn.
Also, now that you’re using the air gun on the HOSPS, you may find they get very skiddish, to the point you can’t get a shot off, before they fly off. I now make a blind out of plywood, with a hole in the front. It’s big enough to sit in, and just sit and wait. The little buggers, think it’s just something in the yard. Allows you time to get an accurate shot off every time! It works great. I use a scope on mine. Make sure you sight the scope in, using a target, before each season starts. I have no problems with HOSPS anymore. Also, I find that leaving a shot HOSP on the ground, where the other HOSPS can see it, greatly deters new ones from sticking around.
Good luck,
Rob

[ToyinPA]

Gotham

It's pretty natural they left, but they may come back too. There is safety in numbers, so they may have decided to go to your neighbors colony. They often stay a few days, leave, come back, leave, etc. If they decide to stay you'll see them nest building. Sometimes the SY's play house, but they may not be ready to set up a home & have kids. You still have plenty of time for a pair to stay.

Most adult martins will not soil in their nest. They remove poop sacs from the chicks & carry them off & drop them. A nest will only get bad once the chicks get bigger & the parents are spending most of their time feeding. That's when you may need to change it out more often.

Toy in PA

[gotham]

June 14

Thanks for the feedback, Rob and Toy.

The pair that left early the morning of June 10 have not returned.

Yesterday I played the Dawn Song into the late afternoon. At various times during the morning single martins landed on each of the balconies of the three open compartments with the round entrance holes. One entered the bottom cavity and stayed awhile, sticking his head out intermittently (see "bottom"). However, he eventually flew away. Another entered the top compartment and stayed inside briefly before leaving (see "top"). One landed on the middle balcony (see "middle") and sat there for some time, looking into the cavity without entering, before also departing. Other singles landed on the roof or on a balcony but stayed only very briefly. It seemed they were interested in the recorded martin sounds emanating from the area of our martin house but were not interested in finding a home for themselves. Unlike the three who recently stayed with us a couple of days, none of yesterday's visitors arrived as a pair. At the end of it all our martin house was still empty.

About 6 AM this morning I again started playing the Dawn Song. A single martin landed briefly on the roof. About 8 AM the first starling in a long time landed on the house and entered a couple of the cavities. As I didn't have time to try to shoot him, I closed the three compartments with round holes and opened three with SREH's. He came back and repeatedly tried, but failed, to get through the open SREH's, eventually giving up and leaving. Light rain prevented further Dawn Song playing and there were no further martin encounters.

A major problem now is that we have only 3 more days before we give our seasonal home over to my wife's nephews (with whom she shares ownership) for a month. Unfortunately, they currently know nothing about purple martins, HOSPs and starlings. Therefore, while we are away, in addition to keeping the cavities with round entrances closed so as to keep starlings out, I will probably also have to close the compartments with the SREHs, in order to prevent HOSPs from moving in.

I will continue trying to get things started these next three days but it's looking very doubtful. I had thought we would benefit from "spillover" from the busy martin house on the neighboring property but the competing attraction of that house and its colony seems to be its predominant (and negative) effect on our chances of success.

Gotham

[gotham]

June 17 Update

Yesterday I played the Dawn Song from 6 AM on. Throughout the morning and early afternoon I had the same martin experience as described in my last posting. Single martins repeatedly landed on our martin house roof and balconies. Sometimes the martin just stayed on the balcony awhile and then left. On a number of occasions a single martin entered a compartment and stayed for a half hour or so, during which time he or she would alternate between looking out through the entrance and then retreating inside. Ultimately, though, the purple martin would fly off. By the end of the morning each of the 3 open cavities had been briefly occupied in this way. On one occasion a starling landed on the roof and chased a martin off the middle balcony. To my surprise, though, a moment later a martin chased the starling off and then entered one of the open cavities. A couple of times a pair of martins alighted on a balcony, with one staying but the other, unfortunately, flying off the instant the pair touched down. Sadly, by mid afternoon our Lonestar Alamo was again empty and has remained so.

Today I slept in and only started playing the Dawn Song at 8 AM. There was very little martin activity overhead and I saw no purple martins on our martin house.

It seems the martins are drawn to our Lonestar Alamo by the Dawn Song. Although they are interested in exploring the house they, at this stage of the season, three weeks after the arrival of the fist SY's, don't seem interested in staying and making it their home. As I postulated earlier, they are probably drawn, instead, to the busy colony on the neighboring property.

Unfortunately, from the point of view of our re-establishing a purple martin colony here this year, my wife and I are letting her nephew, with whom she shares ownership of our seasonal home, have the place for a month (we have had it for the last 2 months so as to be here for the arrival of the scouts and the SY's). My wife's nephew hasn't yet acquired the family interest in purple martins and during our absence our martin house will be unsupervised. So as not to have starlings or HOSPs settle in I am going to close off all the compartment entrances. By the time of our return it will be too late this season to become martin landlords and we will now have to wait until next year to try again.

Thanks to the PMCA and to this forum, I did learn a lot from our first attempt a couple of years ago at trying to re-establish a purple martin colony here. Again with the help of this forum, I think I have learned significantly more during this second try. My wife and I have accepted the necessity of using an air rifle to promptly dispatch the predatory HOSPs and, if necessary, starlings and I have now purchased an accurate one (with a telescopic sight). In this way we should be able to avoid the lengthy closing off of compartments that hampered our efforts this year. A substantial number of purple martins in this area have now become familiar with our martin house and hopefully this will also help next season.

I have been in touch with the new (as of a couple of years ago) owner of the neighboring property and he is becoming interested in purple martins. Thanks to his successful colony we should have a good number of martins return to our immediate area again next year. I continue to be hopeful that we will ultimately succeed in adding a colony on our property to his, and thereby significantly increase the purple martin population coming each year to our region.

For now, I wish good luck to all purple martin landlords for the remainder of this season.

Gotham

[gotham]

June 20

Very unexpectedly my wife's nephew decided not to come to our seasonal home until at least June 25 and we decided to stay, giving us at least another week to try to entice purple martins to settle in!

This morning I played the Dawn Song from 6:10 AM on. A single martin landed momentarily on a balcony, looked through an entrance and immediately flew off. Then a pair of martins landed on the middle balcony of the panel with the round entrances, with one entering the compartment and the other resting on the balcony (see "together"). They then stayed 30-40 minutes, checking out all three of the rooms (see "checkingout"). They flew off for a minute and returned to resume the same sort of activity. They then both flew away for about 10 minutes before coming back and settling into a couple of the cavities (see "onein" and "bothin"). After staying on another approximately 30 minutes they flew off again but, this time, have not returned so far.

Now that we have been given an unexpected reprieve from having to return to Toronto we will continue playing the Dawn Song all day for each of our remaining days here, as the weather permits. We seem to be able to get the purple martins to give our Lonestar Alamo a serious look but, very frustratingly, haven't been able to get them to move in and stay. We'll keep trying !!

Gotham

[gotham]

June 27

Sadly (I've had to use this word often this purple martin season) we've had no further luck.

As we now have to return to Toronto for about 11 days we have decided to close our martin house to keep HOSPs and starlings out.

Given that we have had no takers recently, and that it is very late in the season, we have had to accept that this second year's attempt to re-establish a purple martin colony at our seasonal home has failed. We will leave our Lonestar Alamo down and closed (see "nextyear") for the rest of the summer and in the fall will cocoon it for the winter.

We did come a bit closer this time. I thank those on this forum who have given me helpful advice the past couple of years. We will make another very determined attempt to become martin landlords next season. In the meantime we are rooting for all of you who are hosting and supporting purple martins this year!

Gotham

[Martintown33]

Sounds like the martins are interested. They keep coming to check your house out. How high do you have your house? It looks kind of low (close to the ground) in that pic. An established colony will return to a low house due to site fidelity. But when starting a colony it’s best to have it at least 10 to 14 feet. In the beginning you want to make your house, enticing as possible. Converting the compartments to 6x12 will help too. Martins love deep cavities.
Good luck,
Rob

[gotham]

July 1

Martintown33, thanks for the interest and good wishes.

Our martin house is normally at the very top of the Lonestar Alamo pole shown in the picture. That photo showed the house closed off, as it now appears to be too late in the season to start a colony, given that we have to be in Toronto at the moment and unable to return to our place in Wellington until July 7. The house is down to make it less vulnerable in a windstorm.

Unfortunately, we now have to await next season. We will then make our third try at re-establishing a martin colony at our seasonal place and will give it our all. I have now learned that even when a purple martin pair occupy your house for a couple of days you can't get excited (as I did this year) and conclude they are going to stay. However, we are taking heart from the fact that we came closer this year than we did during our first attempt.

Good luck to you,

Gotham

[Jones4381]

I was pulling for you... Next year it's going to happen as you were so close this go around.