Too many houses????

[Annie G]

I was just wanting some opinions about my set up, and if I have too many houses. I live up on a hill over looking the Wisconsin river which is about 1/4 of a mile away. Our house faces the river which is south, and on that side is the 20 by 40 inground pool. I have 2 m-ss12 converted to larger compartments and tunnels and a gourd rack w/4 natural gourds porched. All of which are within 5 to 15 feet of the pool. On the north side is a 40 by 40 shed and a 10 acre bean field, and there I have another m-ss12 converted w/ tunnels. On the west side I put up a wooden 8 compartment with tunnels. There is one huge cottonwood tree about 60 yards away and the driveway is lined with blue spruce. Other than that the yard is pretty wide open. I have no housing in the east side only because the garden is there and the woods are fairly close . I know some people think I should have all the houses together and I've tried that in the past with no luck. I did have alot of action this past summer so I'm thinking I should leave everything the same. What do ya think??

[Julio]

Annie i don't think you have too much housing, more is always better with Martins, as long as it is proper housing type placement height and appropriate protection measures taken. I see you went so far as to enlarging compartments and i know Martins like this very much. As far as placing one house at a different location, i see this as a bright idea. Martins might like the other location start a a colony and surely attract subbies to your main housing cluster.

[John Miller]

Annie

I think your site sounds great -- maybe I'll come hang out (just kidding). Don't bunch up your housing. You are fortunate to be able to offer the martins several vantage points.

Sliding off thread, you might consider an easy SREH to start. Are you using all crescents? I have started colonies from scratch with all crescents, but I think the WDC is an easier and maybe less intimidating entrance to martins initially at an unestablished site. I also have offered one round hole per house on modified Trio housing. The way I did it was to block off the entrance in the interior wall, so I was just offering a traditional 6 x 6 compartment with a round hole. (starlings show little interest in these, but of course deeper compartments are better for martins). With one round hole, a male can pop right in, bond with the site and show off to the female, who hopefully will choose a SREH with a deeper compartment. Just ideas for an unestablished site. Play the dawn song, and never give up.

John Miller

[Michael Sanford ~ OK]

Annie, there is no such thing as too many martin houses.

John and Julio have given you some good pointers.

[Annie G]

Thanks guys for your opinions. I really appreciate the help. John, to answer your question. I am using all round because I do not have a starling problem here. I'm far enough out in the country not to be bothered with them. I do get rid of about 9 or 10 of them early in the spring, but thats it. Sparrows have not been bad either. I might trap about 3 or 4 early on. Again, thanks for the imput. Good luck this year too! Ann

[Guest]

Golly Gee Annie I just wished I had your problems

Sounds terrific to me

dick

[Guest]

Well, I have a theory, Annie, based on my very limited experience over the last two years and from reading posts for 3 years. I feel that you CAN have too much housing when you are trying to attract your first subadult male. What I think is that the subbie is flying around, looking for housing. He sees a large colony, empty or not, and is too nervous and skittish to go there. He thinks, "There's no way I can defend that!" And then he sees just one house in a yard. And he goes and lands there and he's so proud!

That has been my interpretation of the 2 subbies that have come to my site the last two years. Now, you say you had a lot of visitors last summer, so you can afford to be optimistic, as I am at my site since I had the same situation this year, that you will get stayers next year. But if it were me, and I'm not saying I'm right, I would pick my two best houses out of the ones you have, and I would keep the other ones down and cover them. But that is just my opinion.

[Guest]

My colony was started by a single ASY pair the first year and 3 ASY males the second year along with 7 SY males so its not always SY's that start new colonies.

IMO,, leave them up variety for the females.

dick

[Al Denton]

I can't say if more is better, or less is better. In my case one single persistant ASY male was better than the occasional shy sub adult. For me it was all about the "right bird"

[Conrad Baker]

Too much housing ?????? Is there such a thing ?
Seriously, I think the more the better. Martins love to congregate and the more birds there are, the safer they feel.

NEVER TOO MANY HOUSES !!!!!!!! (My wife might not agree)

[Conrad Baker]

Too much housing ?????? Is there such a thing ?
Seriously, I think the more the better. Martins love to congregate and the more birds there are, the safer they feel.

NEVER TOO MANY HOUSES !!!!!!!! (My wife might not agree)

[Guest]

Yes, Conrad, I agree that when you have a lot of birds, or a lot of visitors, you want to have a lot of perching and some housing to attract them to stay. And my point is that a site full of empty housing does not seem to attract more visitors than a site with, say, one house and one gourd rack. I think martins look down on a large empty site and think, "What's wrong with that place? No one wants to stay there!" I've never heard of anyone getting 20 pairs their first year, so why have 3 times that many compartments before you even have a stayer?

[Annie G]

Thanks for responding to my post. I tended to agree with Karen up until last spring and summer when I had the most action I've had in 20 years of trying. I had adult pairs and subadult pairs checking out all of my housing. The only changes I made for this year were putting tunnels on my MSS-6's and adding a wooden 8 hole house with tunnels and I'm getting some used nests too. I also put lots of perching rods on all my houses and gourd rack. Decoys too, and this year I'm not taking them down like I did last year. I had one decoy made out of a decoration made for Halloween, a blackbird. I cut the tail feathers and shaped the wings to make it look like a martin. So when i placed it inside the compartment all that was sticking out of the hole was the back end of a martin. You would not believe how it attracted the martins. They would sit on its tail and pull at the feathers. Now if i could get it to move!!! Ha ha!! Anyway, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Thanks again! Ann

[joeinindy]

Just a thought, possibly the decoy might have prevented any martins form staying. Sounds like unusual behavior.

[Guest]

Annie, you made major improvements to your site and now you will be reaping the reward for it! You must be so excited after waiting so long.

Decoys can be tricky--some martins don't mind them, some seem to fall in love with them, and some want to fight them, especially after they claim their compartment. So you'll want to be cautious about leaving a decoy made from real feathers up too long. When the martins start trying to rip it apart, that might be signal they want it gone... :o)

[Annie G]

I guess I should have said once I saw the martins picking at the feather decoy, I took it down. I too thought it was unusual, but they were not afraid of it because they would sit right on the tail. I'll only use the plastic ones in the future. Being out in the country hawks are around so the decoys come in handy that way. I've seen more than once a hawk hitting my decoys. When I had racing homer pigeons I had hawks go right in my coop and eat my best bird. Talk about ticked!! Anyway, I will keep an eye on the decoys and hope for the best this year.