Just One House

[Guest]

I've been driving by this lady's martin house for years. She has a beautiful yard and the one little 12 compartment Trio Castle. We talked a few times and i gave her one of my sparrow door traps once and she loaned me a martin book. She is an good pm landlord. I'm just puzzled but also impressed in a way, that she doesn't get more houses. I'm like always thinking...MORE! MORE! MORE!... especially with martins, LOL. But she seems content with what she has. And why shouldn't she? She has a full house every year. Just some thoughts as i sit here wondering when my new gourds are gonna get here

Penny

[carlymac]

Perhaps she knows all she can manage is the single house. My hat is off to her for taking care of her colony regardless of it's size. I see so many single house set ups that are over-run with sparrows and starlings. It's a pleasure to hear of an active landlord with a single house and not a father's/mother's day gift that is put up and forgotten about.
I too have a small colony and have noticed I can learn more from it than a large colony with birds zipping in and out everywhere. I know each bird and notice small diffrences in the way the birds act.
We hear so much about the super colonies, which are GREAT, but I'd rather see a dedicated landlord of 1 gourd hanging on a pole as 100 unmanaged cavities.
Not to mention I'm a sucker for the castle style house

[Guest]

That's for sure, being a good landlord is more important than a bunch of numbers and she's doin a great job. I just hate when people put up their martin house and forget about it.

Nice pic of your house, it looks like hers except yours looks bigger. Is that clothes pens on doors?

Penny

[TreeGreenwood]

Penny, it's likely that Martins raised in single houses are the birds that colonize new sites in the surrounding area. All the cavities in the single house will be filled with or dominated by returning ASYs, forcing their progeny to search for new cavities, perhaps offered at new sites.

My Mennonite neighbors maintain the same traditional wooden houses with round holes year after year. I'm certain that my first Martins came from their colonies. If they added cavities every year, a significant percentage of Martins would have returned to their natal site rather than searching for a new home in my yard.

Take care,

Tree

[carlymac]

Yes Penny, those are my clothes pin door plugs...LOL
They keep starlings out and are easy to use. I now use the foam swimming pool "noodles" cut into plugs but when I switched to cresent SREH's I didn't have any noodles laying around....

[WanderingPM]

Penny,

Excellent idea with the cloths pins!

Thanks for the tip!