Urban Renewal

[Scully]

Haven't been on here much lately, swamped with projects, but rest assured the martins are moving right along.

We put up a total of eleven new gourd racks last year, including at seven new sites. Three of those sites got martins last year, all have returning martins this year, and one more site just got a pair of ASY martins. So, so far four of the seven new sites now have martins.

This particular gourd set is at an elementary school that had about eight pairs in two old Trios. last year this gourd set picked up six SY pairs, this year it appears to have eleven ASY pairs.



The original Trios are still there, plain old round-hole, twelve 6"x6" room aluminum houses. But as can be seen they were in pretty sad shape; one leaning at a precarious angle currently has six pairs of ASY martins and a single pair of sparrows...





Took no time at all to dig down and reset the leaning pole in quickcrete (I was expecting a real chore), here it is lowered after the pole was reset.

This house design is the staff of life for martins in our area (currently being supplanted by equivalent S&K's); the 6" x 6" twelve room house. People put 'em up and they last for decades.

By great good fortune the small room size makes them mostly unattractive to starlings. Most martins can and do nest alongside sparrows, losing eggs and young to be sure, but maintaining the population down here, as long as it rains.



This six martin pair - one sparrow pair ratio is fairly typical of such houses placed in open areas.

The other house was more problematic, missing doors and propped up on two 8' landscape timbers tied to the pole. Flat amazed me that it got martins at all, but it does, every year, this year three ASY pairs and a pair of sparrows.



Fortunately the Troyers donated to us a Trio house at the martin conference in August of last year, here it is, in place....





As can be seen, I set it up as double compartments. Actually, I have serious misgivings as to the wisdom of this process. I don't know that the minor increases in fledglings produced, if any offsets the much greater threat now likely imposed from starlings attracted by the enlarged cavities. In this case the house was provided with the option of larger cavities but WITHOUT SREH's.

I predict disaster for many landlords and a net drop in martin production.

At any rate, the martins, which have not started nest building yet, moved in to the new house within moments.....



So did the sparrows Gonna have to dig up my Trio sparrow traps I have laying around somewhere.

For now I left the house at 8 feet. I may leave it there for the season, in this busy school setting 8ft may well be too low for starlings.

I do have a set of crescent doors for Trios but they are of the sort where the two corners of the entrance each come to a sharp point, to my mind they have "wing entrapment" written all over 'em.

But, for now, here they are, fit to show company again



Mike Scully

[DornCounty]

Great work. Reminds me of the project I am working on.

From my experience I can tell you that unless you have many martins you will get starlings trying to claim the expanded compartments.

I would either make them 6x6 or get the SREH's on them. I can do a door mod in about 30mins now.

There were 4 expanded compartments on 2 houses that i took over and 3 of them had starlings. I put SREH's on and 2 starlings killed themselves trying to make a home in the 6x6's I guess they got stuck and died?

Anyway great job! have you thought about approaching the administration about giving some lessons on the birds?

[Ben@SWMichiganPM]

Nice work. I wish I had purple martins at my school growing up.

[John Miller]

Mike

Great. Have been wondering.

urge you to put crescent doors on the Trio that is now deep compartments. I tried using a modified house with round holes once, and starlings over ran it. I'd think someone here would donate some if you need them, or you could contact ERVA.

another alternative would be to just pull the front doors off. You would still have a deeper back compartment that gets the babies back out of the weather, but remains less attractive to starlings.

John M

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I sure would not recommend that you remove the doors and leave them off, I don't even like the looks of that

Mike


another alternative would be to just pull the front doors off. You would still have a deeper back compartment that gets the babies back out of the weather, but remains less attractive to starlings.

John M

[Carlton]

On my SREH replacement plates I use a paper towel and a solvent to clean off any dirt or factory oil from the inside of the plate before cutting one long and two short sections of the thickest weatherseal you can buy. I put the long strip above the SREH and the two short strips on the sides. SO FAR the foam seals have held tight (This is the second season using the same seals.) and I have not had any wing entrapment. I tried curving one long piece of the foam strip over/around the SREH but it did not hold well. I think there was too much tension on the bow. I use both the original Excluder plates as well as the Crescent. I prefer the Crescents that are crimped over at the base and more rounded in the corners. Not everyone seems to carry that type.

I have used the foam strips on both my Trendsetter with Excluder entrances and on my MSS-8's with Crescents and Excluders.

I find that even if starlings do not nest in the 6x6 compartments they still reach in and yank out the martin nests and eggs using the keyhole entrances. I would not use the SREH's with just the 6x6 compartment as that does not leave enough room for the nest and the martins moving around while still being able to enter the SREH.

[~Ray~Gingerich]

Looking good Scully!
Its good to have martin houses at schools, some of those kids could be future landlords.

[John Miller]

Emil disagrees with me. I agree pulling the doors off and using the back compartments is not aesthetically pleasing, but my primary concern is martin safety, and I think this house is set up for failure...so was suggesting a quick alternative and like that country song..that's my story and sitcking to it. The back compartment with the front off will not be as starling resistant as just having a 6 x 6 up front because starlings will still enjoy being further back in the shadows, but not nearly as much as is configured now.

[Matt F.]

John,
I agree with you. With enlarged compartments, the best bet would be to use the crescent doors (with the PMCA wing entrapment protectors), or to remove the round hole doors completely.
Sure with the door removed, it's not near as aesthetically pleasing, but again I agree with you, it would be safer for the Martins.

Mike,
Great work!!!!!!
The only thing different now that the S&K houses have entered the loop, is going to be their longevity. It's going to be interesting to see how the plastic houses hold up over time.
One other question, are there subfloors in the new M-12K you put up? Hopefully you took the subfloors out of the retired MSS-12, and placed them into the new unit.

[Matt F.]

One other question, are there subfloors in the new M-12K you put up? Hopefully you took the subfloors out of the retired MSS-12, and placed them into the new unit.

Upon closer inspection of the closeup photo of your M-12K, I noticed the glistening of a subfloor barely showing underneath the door.
Great work! I should've known you knew to put subfloors in there....

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I think that you can make some money with this idea about taking the doors off and using it that way, you may win a prize if you turn it in as a "Redneck SREH".... (just kidding!)...I still hope that you do not use it that way in one of your public sites.

[Scully]

I unearthed my old Trio door traps from the garage and spent a hugely profitable ninety minutes out at the housing site yesterday (actually, we were planting a garden.

Ninety minutes, two sparrow pairs, males and females trapped and rendered strangely tailless (one pair from each house). If experience over the last five years or so is any guide, these thing will stay in the immediate vicinity for months, taking up "sparrow space", but will NOT bother the martin housing again, at least not this year.

Statistically about half of them will still be around next year, but if they DO actually bother the housing in subsequent years (no way of knowing short of banding) I have not had any difficulty in trapping them.









Then this morning, this.....

Installation of SREH's on the house with enlarged rooms. For some reason Trio saw fit to paint them a pale lavender. I installed a short strip of insulation at each corner as a sort of make-do wing entrapment guard, gonna come back either with PMCA entrapment guards or with Trio Modified Excluder entrances.





Mike Scully

[Scully]

Upon closer inspection of the closeup photo of your M-12K, I noticed the glistening of a subfloor barely showing underneath the door.
Great work! I should've known you knew to put subfloors in there....

The subfloors came with the house (Mk 12???). Pretty clear instructions on how to assemble the house too ........

.....but the instructions with the "heavy-duty telescoping pole".... not so clear

Actually next year the old house (with rope and pulley) will probably go back up, it is still fundamentally sound. A new rope and doors and it should be ready to go.

Mike Scully.

[Matt F.]

Mike, you rock!
Absolutely awesome work!
Between your high school, and the elementary schools, you are definitely planting the seed that is going to give us the next generation, of great Martin landlords!

[Scully]

Why thanks Matt.

I'll 'fess up, all this martin stuff just got me a national teaching award (NOT one of those that comes with $10,000 tho), so I have been quite awash with praise lately. Fortunately I have been at this game far too long to take all that too seriously (although I prob'ly woulda taken $10,000 pretty seriously ).


On a more serious note, one thing I did notice is that, when the crescents were installed, the upward bent forward edge on the subfloor inserts projected high enough to impinge upon the bottom edge of the crescents, likely making entry impossible, perhaps even trapping the martins inside.

This was easily solved by flipping the inserts upside down, still providing traction for the martins while not affecting the entrance. I will probably remove these inserts from the front chambers entirely and just put traction tape down.

I dunno that a newby landlord using these things would know to do that though.

Mike Scully

[John Miller]

Mike

Good.

A golfer at Forest Park, St. Louis, the other day stopped to chat as I was fiddling with gourd racks. he was from San Antonio and we talked about your school and the martins.....it's a small world among us martin folks.

John M

[Scully]

Ya John,

I'm gonna give them a few days to adapt and then raise up that house to full height in stages. The kids can see them better at 8ft like that but it does put the martins at more risk for Coopers and Sharpies dropping over the adjacent roof tops.

Mike Scully

[Scully]

Not very ofen does one get to watch martins try to get into a house to roost the same evening the round holes were switched to crescent SREH's.

Four possible five pairs in the house, all but one male succeeded in negotiating the crescents.

Mike Scully

[teridickinson]

Mike

The purple stuff is just the protective plastic covering they ship with. You can peel it off.

Teri

[Scully]

I suppose next you're gonna suggest I read the directions...


....I went this am and peeled 'em off, thanks.

Meanwhile, anyone notice anything odd about these two house sparrows? they've been hanging around campus for about two weeks now.....



Mike Scully