Neighbor Saw Me

[TreeGreenwood]

.. out doing a final check on my housing and stopped to chat. He lives half a mile up a rural road that runs beside my property. I knew him by sight, a 'nodding acquaintance' since just after we moved here 20 years ago.

He asked about my PM housing, explaining that he had a colony for many years that he lost to predation by a raccoon or cat . Like most in my area, he had a traditional wood PM house with round entry holes and 6x6" compartments. His was mounted on a tilt-over pole rather than the fixed poles most common here. I showed him my S&K telescoping poles and the EZ-Lift, the natural and plastic gourds, BoVillas and houses with crescent SREH.

We also talked about other birds. He shoots sparrows and starlings when he sees them with a .410. I showed him my traps and air rifles and described my strategy. We walked around to look in my other nestboxes as I put a Van Ert trap in one claimed by a male house sparrow. I got the sparrow in 15 minutes and put him in the repeating ground trap as a decoy.

We spent most of the afternoon talking about Purple Martins. He badly wants to reestablish his colony and is ready to do things right. He left with a fist full of info sheets that came with an S&K order and my paper PMCA catalog. He's retired, set in his ways, and won't ever have Internet access or a computer. He isn't so old fashioned that he won't make changes to benefit Purple Martins. He will be ordering from both PMCA and S&K in a few days.

When my neighbor gets his new housing up, it will be on poles that allow him to do regular nest checks with predator guards. I'm glad he decided to stop by and chat. Thanks to those tall poles, I made a new friend.

Take care,

Tree

[Al Denton]

That's a nice story....In my 8 years of having martin housing in my yard, no one has ever stopped by to discuss martins or such. I think it would be nice to have a neighbor with martins or that is trying. Maybe someday somebody will...maybe if I get martins. Good for you TreeGreenwood

[Guest]

way to go Tree, you made a new friend and helped the martins out too. Have a good year with your martins. Henry

[Matt F.]

That's awesome Tree!

I've seen a lot of those older, wooden martin houses using those "tilt-down" pole setups.
It's a shame, because so many of them are beautiful martin houses, but they just simply don't allow for safe nest checks.

Is your friends colony active?

[Matt F.]

That's awesome Tree!

I've seen a lot of those older, wooden martin houses using those "tilt-down" pole setups.
It's a shame, because so many of them are beautiful martin houses, but they just simply don't allow for safe nest checks.

Is your friend's colony active?

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Tree, I was introduced to this forum in about 1989 by a neighbor that stopped to talk about martins..We are still neighbors and very good friends..His visit helped me by leaps and bounds through the PMCA and this forum.

This may be a very good idea, as I have had people to stop by and start asking questions, and I helped some of them. I also had a lot of failures. About 5 houses down the street, a landlord with 2 very nice aluminum martin houses refuses to control starlings and sparrows, so that all that she has in her houses..she accuses me of stealing all of her martins..I have another neighbor 1 block over, he stopped to vistit, we talked quite a bit, I even gave him 2 gourds to hang under his house, but he also refuses to do anything...he has had the gourds for about 3 years but he has not put them up..He will not move his house out from under trees.

To approach people doesn't work very often, but at the same time, there will be some that will accept advice, and then you have a winner...good luck on this project.