Help me decide what to do!!!

[Guest]

Today I found alot of PM feathers about 5 feet from the base of one of my houses. No carcus or bones -- just ALOT of feathers in a pile. I am living in a subdivision and my houses are in a fenced back yard. The old cat I have is declawed front paws and there are some neighboring cats. I have seen a few hawks in the distant fields. There are no trees of any degree for at least a half mile. Please advise on the most likely culprit. I do have some competing starlings and cannot shoot them-- I have just been removing their nests-- also a HS couple have been trying to nest and I have been removing them. HELP!!

[Guest]

I assume that since you are having starlings try to nest that you have round holes. You can solve that by converting your housing to SREH. Stops the Starlings cold.

Can't help you with the other, sorry.

Ian

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

There is no way to say what ate your martin. It could have been a cat or hawk. An owl usually takes it to the nearest tree so it probably was not an owl...My guess is a cat. A hawk often flys to a nearby limb or flys a short distance at least....Cats catch a lot of birds.

My suggestion is to start trapping the starlings & sparrows, and put on the SREH to stop the starlings..If you fail to stop the starlings & sparrows, you probably will have trouble getting martins.

[Guest]

My earlier post asking for help has led me to believe that a neighboring cat may be climbing over my fence and climbing my PM housing poles. Will a predator guard such as the one sold online in the PMCA shop work for cats?? Thanks

[eyeamtheman]

A predator guard probably will deter even a cat, BUT I would suggest putting the guard up as high as possible, because the cat is more than likely jumping pretty high up before shinnying the rest of the way up your pole. If you are not using a guard of some kind, you need to have one anyway.
Good luck !!