Opening Up PM Houses in Ontario?

[catoscar]

I love this forum and learn a lot from everyone. I have a question about when to open up my Martin houses. I live in Southern Ontario Canada. I have been a landlord and have successfully raised Martins for the past 10 years. I have 4 Trio houses and a gourd rack with 12 Troyer gourds so I can house up to 60 pairs of Martins. However every year I keep battling with the question of when is the correct time in Ontario to open up my Martin houses. I have followed and reported every year on this site scout arrival page.

My scout arrival has been anytime between April 3rd to April 15th with the average being April 10th. So far its cold here in Ontario with below average seasonal temperatures. I have raised one of my Trio houses and opened up 2 compartments and filled them with some pine needles. I really don't want to start fighting the pesky house sparrows until some Martins arrive.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated on:

1. When should I raise all my Martin houses? When should I open up all my Martin house compartments?
Currently I have one Trio House raised and 2 compartments opened.
2. Should I raise all of them but just keep the 2 compartments on one of them open?
3. Or should I raise all and open a couple compartments on all of the houses and gourds?
4. After I have my first scout should I open up all my houses or wait till more birds arrive as not to fight with the sparrows?

Thanks

[John Miller]

I think you've mostly answered your own questions and are doing the right thing, especially having a few rooms open for shelter when a martin shows up. I agree with opening in phases, if it seems to help with sparrow control. One other tip would be to leave units on the north and west sides closed initially because I have found that spring snow storms sometimes block those entrances.

[Doug Martin - PA]

What John has offered is good advice. I don't disagree but I guess I do things differently.

I open up all the housing at the same time when they are due to arrive. I do a good job of dealing with renegade sparrows however. I guess my thinking is why let the sparrows compete directly with the same few open cavities as the often exhausted returning Martins. If you can't keep sparrows out then it will be an issue regardless at some point. But I certainly don't want to push them into the same few holes as my Martins.

I tend to wonder how you can get away with aluminum Trio housing up their in Canada. Generally thick wooden housing in the northern climates provides better protection from the cold and wind. A thick bed of pine straw in the deep Excluder gourds also seems to do the trick here in the cold.

You need some good traps or a pellet gun for the sparrows. Better to deal with them when the Martins are not there and the housing is closed. They start nesting earlier and are easier to trap using rigged nest boxes. Some folks have good success using repeating food type traps. I have not.

Hope you have a great season up there.

Doug

[Ed Svetich-WI]

If you have had martins for ten years, you have been doing something right. As you have already seen, there is no right or wrong answer. Individual circumstances dictate tactics. If sparrows are really a problem, I would limit open cavities. I am fortunate in not having a sparrow issue. When I do see one, it is usually soon caught in a trap that I set out as soon as I begin to think about martins in the spring. I use a Super Gourd with the smaller entry and I permanently installed a trap with screws. It is very attractive to sparrows when grasses are let hanging out of the entry a bit. They seem drawn to the smaller hole and possibly darker interior. I leave it on the gourd rack until all other gourds have a pair of martins and then I put up the final gourd for the martins.

Hope you have a successful year.

Ed

[catoscar]

Thanks for everyone's responses. Throughout the season I use the Trio house sparrow door traps as well as my BB gun to eliminate house sparrows.

I just wanted to see what other landlords did with respect to opening up their houses. I am always open to any recommendations or advice as the responses that I read in this forum are extremely helpful.

Thanks

[Insectivore Villa]

You are doing everything right, you must be, they keep coming back. Your place is about 2.5 hrs east of us, so most of the things we do here will apply to your place. I have zero rooms open until my first bird arrives, usually April 1-10, but we check daily for arrivals.
We got our first female Friday, so we opened ten rooms, five facing south and five facing east. That direction is opposite the prevailing winds here to keep the first few as warm as possible. Ten seems high, but when I get one, they seem to come daily after that, although not this year because it is sooooo cold and crappy. If I were you, I would open five soon, facing away from the wind and do your best with the sparrows you will inevitably get.
Each of our rooms have two good handfuls of white pine needles in them, placed diagonally away from the entrance pressed into a cup shape to keep them warm(ish) and dry.
I tend to have twice as many rooms open as I have adult males at my place, keeps the squabbling to a minimum. We open more as we go along, and we find that once we hit about 10-12 ASY males, competition from sparrows slow down and the SREH crescent holes keep the starlings away for the most part. So we don't open all at once, we open more and more as we go and in mid to late May, we open all for the SY's.
Yes we have to control a few sparrows, but rather than have the martins and sparrows compete for a few rooms, let the sparrows have a few and deal wth them as you go along, it is a never ending battle some years.
And of course we supplementally feed by flinging eggs with a large serving spoon and have an elevated feeding tray in the middle of my five poles. The female I have now won't feed from the tray but she does not miss from the spoon.
You can get in touch with me directly by touching the dialogue box by my info on the right side and send an email to me directly if you need anything else.