Pine Needles

[fotoimages]

Hello Everyone, I’ve been reading the forum about using pine needles to help them start their nest. Obviously it works. You guys have seemed to have good results. It seems odd to me that they wouldn’t assume the nest was occupied seeing the needles when they were checking thing out. Am I thinking to much like a human? Lol

fotoimages - Dave….

[C.C.Martins]

Dave,
Well I think we do it for a bunch of reasons, #1 for me is it keep them warm, gives them a good place to rest and keep their body heat in, and 2 keeps the time spent on the ground gathering nesting material to a minimum...they will do that anyway but they will build on the pine needle base. They are vulnerable on the ground.
Also, some folks smear mud around entrances to give it a lived in look...the martins don't mind that lived in look. They are secondary cavity nesters, meaning they would (still do im sure), nest in old woodpecker homes.

[brent]

I agree. Once I learned about pre-nesting with pine needles (here on the forum) I started to do it. It gives me the opportunity to prepare for the birds and once they return they have a nice nest of pine needles to sleep in. I’ll go in after a few days and kind of straighten things up...a little house cleaning. Once they start to bring in leaves and other materials it’s all up to them. They keep the pine needles as their base. I think Phil said something to the effect that we put the houses up to invite them here so it is our responsibility to make it the best for a successful nesting. I agree. Brent

[C.C.Martins]

Brent,
(Not hijacking Dave's thread), iv started to leave a little poop in the tunnels too...the plastic gourds. Natural gourds i thoroughly clean, wash and dry.
Am I the only guilty one? Its a lived in look for sure. Course I dust em before storage but I'm not as adamant about it any more.

[SSMartin]

As already noted it helps them finish the nest building faster. I have lost many females gathering materials on the ground to Cooper’s hawks. Never a nice sight.

Large colonies are so busy gathering together and distracted they are such easy targets.

Their natural nests were mostly older woodpecker nests and would have been full of debris so it doesn’t seem to have any bearing on occupancy.

[Phil01]

David,
Agree with all the above reasons. Definitely wouldn’t want my returning birds sleeping on cold plastic either.

The already occupied look is what you’re wanting. Martins want to be around other Martins, that’s the reason landlords smear mud on the porches. One of the reasons I like to put my housing up early (besides the fact that I’m excited for the new season) is to get it pooped on by all the songbirds.. The bluebirds love hunting for bugs from the top of the gourd rack.

Tom, the first couple years I was sooooo anal about cleaning the gourds. Would scrub em till they looked brand new.. lol Now, I give them a blast with water, a quick once over with soapy water, then rinse. I leave the stains..

Good luck this season David!
Phil

[C.C.Martins]

Phil,
Thats it exactly. Knock the big stuff off. Scrub, blast and dry. Fix if I have to. Dust and store.

[Dave Duit]

I'm just stating the obvious to be sure everyone knows to use soft white pine needles when brown or yellow on the ground. I had heard years back that people got confused and were putting the prickly hard green pine needles ( a completely different pine needle than white pine).

[Dave Reynolds]

.. All great information on pre-nesting…. I do it also, mainly because it keeps them off of the cold metal floors in some houses and in some gourds.. Generally they build a nest right on top of the pre-nesting pine needles.. Good Luck I n 2024

Dave

[Martintown33]

I definitely pre nest for all the reasons listed above…
Rob

[fotoimages]

That's some fantastic information. I wouldn't have thought of that stuff. It makes sense when I think about it. White pine needles no problem. I'll try it out along with some mud. I use a mix of 9 parts water to 1 part bleach in a spray (mist) bottle in my bluebird, tree swallow and barn swallow nests after cleaning them out every fall. Just enough to mist down the walls and floor. I hope to kill the mites and give them all a chance to dry thoroughly. I'm thinking this should work for the Martins as well. Thanks again everyone.

fotoimages - Dave

[fotoimages]

That's some fantastic information. I wouldn't have thought of that stuff. It makes sense when I think about it. White pine needles no problem. I'll try it out along with some mud. I use a mix of 9 parts water to 1 part bleach in a spray (mist) bottle in my bluebird, tree swallow and barn swallow nests after cleaning them out every fall. Just enough to mist down the walls and floor. I hope to kill the mites and give them all a chance to dry thoroughly. I'm thinking this should work for the Martins as well. Thanks again everyone.

fotoimages - Dave

[Spiderman]

May have been mentioned in here and I didn’t see it.

But pine needles shed water really well, so you are reducing the number of wet nests from either rain storms or wet Martins coming in during the rain.

That is the reason I use pine needles.

[brent]

How could I forget that Spiderman? Glad you noticed! Brent

[deancamp]

Dave, here are some pictures I took of Martin house entrances to show people using mud for the lived in look what the real deal looks like.

[fotoimages]

Glad you showed me how you used the mud. Thank You!

[mjfog]

Hi to all, I gave up on pine needles. Have 72 gourds on 3 racks. Pre-nested half with Slash Pine needles last season; left half alone. Had 70 gourds with nests. Of the two that were void of nests; one was pre-nested and one was left alone - straight plastic. Don't need be a statistics whiz to see the futility of pre-nesting.
My colony is now up to an estimated 40-50 birds and the joy of watching these guys come in from a day's hunting is why I'm in my seventh year land-lording martins.
Will begin my weekly gourd inspection the weekend after I see my first birds "go to ground" (when the girls begin collecting nest material).
Wishing all a successful season, Mike, Palm City, Florida

[dsonyay]

Hi to all, I gave up on pine needles. Have 72 gourds on 3 racks. Pre-nested half with Slash Pine needles last season; left half alone. Had 70 gourds with nests. Of the two that were void of nests; one was pre-nested and one was left alone - straight plastic. Don't need be a statistics whiz to see the futility of pre-nesting.
My colony is now up to an estimated 40-50 birds and the joy of watching these guys come in from a day's hunting is why I'm in my seventh year land-lording martins.
Will begin my weekly gourd inspection the weekend after I see my first birds "go to ground" (when the girls begin collecting nest material).
Wishing all a successful season, Mike, Palm City, Florida

I’ve had very similar results as you had. Although I didn’t have nearly as many gourds, I did notice that some Martins nested in gourds that had no nesting material and some didn’t do any nesting in a couple of gourds that had nesting material. I don’t think it really matters but, 1: it certainly doesn’t hurt to put a little nesting material, and 2: It is nice to have nesting material in there for those early days where the mornings are quite cold, and maybe periods where it goes below freezing, the nesting material does add a nice layer of warmth I would think.

I’m just not totally convinced that it makes a difference.. but I will say this- it does make me feel good tending to the little guys and giving them something Kinda nice to welcome them when they first arrive after that long trip lol.

[Thomabear]

Last year I pre-nested a few cavities and left the rest bare. When nesting building started, I put out a thick layer of pine needles using large rubber bands on top 3 of 4 of the bed/breakfast trays set about 30 feet from the housing. I enjoyed watching them fly back and forth practically non-stop hauling the pine needles into their claimed cavities. They hauled so much so fast that I had to refill the B&B trays every 2-3 days until things slowed down. This year I left everything bare except 3 south facing cavities for them to gather in if the weather gets cold and will put out the pine needles as soon as I see the start of nest building.