I guess with anyone trying to grow a colony like I am, they would experience the same deal that I am presently experiencing. I am estimating that I have approx 40 adults at the moment with arrivals daily it seems. This is way ahead of schedule for me, but then, I never had the amount of gourds that I have available this season. But I am so overwhelmed with ASY males at the moment, probably out numbering my females 3-1. I am sure I am getting quite a few ASY males that were subbies last year and didn't mate or ASY males that were not successful in reproducing last season.
I am in need of females badly for these males. I realize that it is still very early, but this was enough to raise my eyebrow. Subbies haven't started to arrive as of yet, and surely there will be females available when they do. But then, there will be the addition of subby males arriving also.
Another observation is that these martins will quickly adapt to the crescent entrances. But they definitely prefer porches not flush with the entrance bottom. My excluder gourds, all my supergourds with metal porches, natural gourds with porches attached below the entrance, etc were all taken before any with flush porches were. They are starting to use them, but as I said, they prefer them not to be flush. Someone on the forum, I forget his name, but he posted several times that flush porches are somewhat hard on the martins, and from my observations I agree. Anyways, my large, brand new natural gourds with flush porches (which is the majority of my naturals) were not touched until all the others were filled. I even strategically placed them where Supergourds were last season. Don't kill the messenger, it's just an observation.
I have a neighbor that put up several gourd racks and has those very small, plastic gourds with round holes. AND HE ATTRACTED SEVERAL ASY's! I WAS FLABBERGASTED. His racks are within 20 feet of trees, right on top of his house, etc. The only thing his site had that mine didn't was round holes. So I threw up another rack with round hole supergourds that I had tucked away in my shed. I think I put a dent in his martin total as these gourds filled within two days. Hey, it was for the benefit of the martins.
Anyways, I wanted to share this surplus male situation as I am hoping for comments from landlords that have experienced something similar. I understand it's early and not unusal to have more males then females this time of season. But at this ratio? If the gender ratio doesn't get any better soon, I feel for these females. It could get rough.