NW IN site fidelity?

[JAH78531]

I will be entering year 8 of trying to establish a PM colony, with partial success last year. 2019-2021 no activity. 2022-2023 a couple fly-bys. At the end of May 2024 started receiving daily visits from a SY male, lasting until the end of June, without nesting success.This SY male put up with constant kingbird attacks throughout this 1 month period. Fast forward to early May 2025 a ASY male and SY female were present. A cold snap towards the of May delayed nesting activity, and as things progressed and the 2 babies were about 2 weeks old I noticed that the female was no longer present. The male would spend long periods of time sitting on the housing, once I opened the housing it was apparent the babies were recently deceased. The kingbird attacks were quite fierce within the last 2 weeks of the nesting cycle- maybe the female was injured/killed. My question- would a nesting cycle falling a few weeks short of completion be enough to create site fidelity for the ASY male?

[flyin-lowe]

I would say there is a decent chance he will retun, assuming he survived(s) migration. If he does that will be great. Having an ASY male at your site is a great way to start a colony. There will be some females who want to nest with him. If not duing the initial wave of ASY's, than for sure an SY female. When I started my first colony, after 4 years I finally had an SY male spend the entire summer, tryging to attract a mate but he never did. The next year he returned to the same cavity and I ended up having 5 pair that year, numbes shot up from there. Do you have any pictures of your setup and your property. We might be able to spot some things that will help your chaces. We need more Hoosier landlords.

[Bird Brain]

If nesting failure occurs through no fault or negligence on your part, then he should return in my opinion. If you are at fault or negligent as a landlord, then they won't return. The birds are smart enough to know the difference in my opinion. Whatever happened to the female, the male knows there is nothing you could have done to prevent it. These birds are very intelligent. They won't blame you for failure situations beyond your control. You had a pair take a chance on you. That's a good sign. It means you have a good location. You could always upgrade a little bit and make your site more desirable (more perches, more units, larger units, etc.) You can't make it desirable enough when you're trying to get that first successful pair. Good luck to ya sir!

[flyin-lowe]

It would be an intersting study. I kind of feel the oposite is true, I don't think the birds are always as smart as we give them credit for. I used to raise and bread parrots and some other types of birds. Some of the larger parrots are very intelligent. I am not certain a wild martin would have the brain power to differintiate a death of a mate or nest caused by natural causes v some type of predator issue.
I have heard people talk about a colony abandoning a location following a snake attack. I assume if a martin saw a snake climb a pole and move cavity to cavity I could see them leaving. However if a snake climbed up in the middle of the night and wiped out one house full of martins, would the martins in the house one pole over abandon that site, reailzing some type of predator had to have taken out the other half of the colony?

[JAH78531]

Appreciate the replies. Hopeful for some more success in 2026. The ASY male that nested with a SY female in 2025 had built a 2nd complete nest in an adjacent cavity, trying to attract a second female. He spent a lot of his time running off investigating SY males. My local pair of Kingbirds would land on top of the housing and wait for the martins to exit and try to drive them to the ground. The martins completely switched there flight path entering and exiting the housing to try to avoid the attacks. Will the kingbird problems get better with more pairs?

[randyM]

I had a western kingbird pair nest in a plastic heath house in the middle of my colony a number of years ago (fledged 4 of 5 young). I had over 35 pairs of martins nesting then and there were occasional squabbles between martins and the kingbirds, but they got along for the most part. Each year I have both western and eastern kingbirds nesting in trees within 75 yards of my martin colony and they co-exist pretty well and often team up with martins and attack any hawks that fly nearby. I have lots of tree swallows nesting around my colony as well that get along with my martins. I'd estimate that once your colony reaches 3 or more martin pairs, the aggression towards martins by any kingbirds (and/or tress swallows) nesting nearby will diminish, as they will eventually grow tired of the conflict and get on with their daily nesting routine.

Good luck this season. I hope your martin colony takes off this year!

Randy

[LCM]

This is what happened last year to my house.
One morning I was checking out my box and was walking around it and noticed feathers on the ground at the base of the pole. My heart sank. I lowered the pole and checked the nests.
One nest was completely empty. No babies, and I had 5-6 babies with feathers in that box.
I checked the other boxes and thankfully, every nest was accounted for.
Additionally I noticed mud on the pulley and wire. I set my wire trap that night and I caught the coon.
The others raised their babies just like nothing happened. I was very sad and disappointed but thankful that the coon only cleaned out one nest