I’m Molly. I live in Georgia and have been a lover of birds for a long time. In 2017, I really started my bird watching days while on maternity leave. Just me, the baby, the birds and my porch. I’ve had bluebird houses for years and always feed the hummers. Barn swallows have been coming back to the same nest on my front porch for 4+ years. After doing a year of research in 2022, last year I decided to add some PM housing!
I THOUGHT I had seen PMs on our farm (35 acres, mostly field, neighbor with a pond to our east, large creek to the south, and another huge pond to our west) but I was not 100% sure. I thought they were probably nesting in trees if so, because there are not any PM colonies immediately near me that I know of.
On June 11, 2023 I finally got my 12 gourd rack up. I knew it would probably be years before I got martins, or so I thought… June 12 I had a pair of martins checking out the new digs. I couldn’t believe it. They checked it out several times over the next few weeks which was exciting enough for me. Maybe they would come back next year.
This year I prepared and watched for arrivals between February 15-March 1.
I played some morning song for one day about March 18 for about 30 minutes… doubt it did any good but who knows, maybe!
March 20 I had my first Martin visitor!! I’m ecstatic. Maybe too ecstatic. I’m assuming it is him, but he has been back every morning bright and early at the same gourd. I have called him OG and that will be gourd number 1!
his little tweets were the absolute best!March 21 I had a the single male visitor and March 23 a maybe female arrived.
Now I’m not the best at distinguishing the SY M from Females yet, so I’ll leave it at male and maybe female for now.
March 24 I had 4 birds that morning (3 male and 1 maybe female) and at least 6 that evening (4 male and 2 maybe female)
March 25 I had at least 10 birds. Mostly male and 2 maybe female.
I saw 7 birds this morning but didn’t take a video so I can’t remember exact coloring, but definitely mostly males. 1 female that was being fought over.
I have been scrolling through the forum well before I joined and am looking forward to learning A LOT from all of you!!
Also, if I should calm my excitement- please advise.
No one else understands my excitement. My brother in law has a well established colony outside of Perry, Ga but I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it yet. I will see him Thursday and will inundate him with questions. The only other person I knew with Martins was his dad and he has passed away. He had hundreds in Alabama!
Anyways, thanks for reading if you made it this far and please give me any and all of your best advice for just starting out!
I have cedar shavings in my gourds and just waiting to check them out and for the next chapters of their sweet little lives!
Molly
You definitely came to the right place to learn from the many years of combined experience this membership has to offer, not to mention making good friends along the way. I’ll share 3 resources that proved very helpful when I first started out a few years back. 
