We were able to keep almost all of our PMs alive during the spell of bad weather. They accepted "flipped" crickets, and eventually took to feeding off a B&B style feeder. We have a total of about 18 birds so far.
Then, last nite around 9:00PM, I turned on our outside light to our deck, and saw the backside of a Great Horned Owl sitting on the deck railing, looking intently at the gourd rack 25 feet away!
We did suffer at least one successful owl attack last year, with me finding PM feathers on the deck at virtually the same spot this GHO was sitting. I assume this is the same owl.I opened the sliding door and walked out toward him. I got about 10 feet away before he turned his head 180 degrees and looked at me. I hissed at him & he took off into the night. As I stood there, I could hear the PMs chattering away in the gourds; no doubt the GHO hear this too.
I have the PMCA owl gourd guards in place, and about 3/4s of my gourds have tunnels. I even added a continuous piece of 12-gauge wire strung horizontally around the owl guards at about the height of the gourd entrances, to create a protective "ring" around the whole rack. I am unable to play music to mask the PM nocturnal noises.
I hope my guards hold, or that I scared Mr GHO enough so he won't come back
Don & Danielle
I personally have no experience with owl guards, but reading a lot on the Forum about owl attacks, the one prevention that makes most sense to me is to cover up the martin's whispering. As I understand, the owl attacks by hanging on to the housing and shaking it and then grab the martins as they try to get out. This is where I am thinking NOT to hear the martins would be the best prevention. Since you cannot play music maybe you can work with other "white noise' (like Sonja). There are also tapes with the sound of nature like rain, wind, frogs, etc. which might not be so obvious to your neighbors. I was also thinking if maybe a mister on top of your housing, that you turn on right before dark and maybe turn off in the morning, could make the owl feel too uncomfortable or scared, and prevent a landing on the housing 