New Landlord with a few questions

[Cooch366]

Good morning,

I’m a new landlord to the PM community (been one for other species and very successful with Bluebirds) and decided to venture into the PM arena.

I built and installed the house pictured in April of this year. Evicted several House Sparrow attempts, but was not successful at drawing PM’s.

Yesterday I completed & installed the gourd rack, (with a 4x4 winch system which I fabricated). Hoping to increase our chances of success.

In following the Gourd instructions, I added the pine needles as recommended, something I did not do in April to the main house. So my questions are:

Am I too late this season in installing the Gourds? (I’m in North Central Massachusetts)

Could not having nesting materials in the house be the reason it was not occupied?

Any additional tips, information or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We are looking forward to this adventure.

Many Thanks…. Steve

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[jhcox]

Place a couple PM decoys on top of the housing it has two purposes to attract PM and to help with hawk or owl attacks. Smear mud on the entrances of both the goirds and the house to make it look a little lived in. Pine needles are a must as well. But in my the most valuable asset to a new landlord is the Dawn song via a cd playing with a speaker outside. Or as I did just for the simplicity of it is the (Song bird magnet ) its a green water proof box that plays the song and it has like a 20’ cord so you can mount it on a pole or I. One of the cavities of your house. The. You plug it to a timer and set it to play for 2 or 3 hours in the early morning 5am to 8am the. Again at 12 to 2 and again in the evening say 6 to 8. They work great and are not very expensive I have two one in the back PM racks and one in the front PM rack. I hope this helps good luck next year.

JHCox
Heiskell TN

[Cooch366]

Place a couple PM decoys on top of the housing it has two purposes to attract PM and to help with hawk or owl attacks. Smear mud on the entrances of both the goirds and the house to make it look a little lived in. Pine needles are a must as well. But in my the most valuable asset to a new landlord is the Dawn song via a cd playing with a speaker outside. Or as I did just for the simplicity of it is the (Song bird magnet ) its a green water proof box that plays the song and it has like a 20’ cord so you can mount it on a pole or I. One of the cavities of your house. The. You plug it to a timer and set it to play for 2 or 3 hours in the early morning 5am to 8am the. Again at 12 to 2 and again in the evening say 6 to 8. They work great and are not very expensive I have two one in the back PM racks and one in the front PM rack. I hope this helps good luck next year.

JHCox
Heiskell TN

Thanks for the tips. I will look into implementing them.

I also see from your history (thanks for that) that it may take some time to be successful in attracting them. Kudos to you for sticking with it for years with no activity, but it looks like the persistence and wait was well worth it.

I hope I am not too late to attract them this year, or least have this year count as an attempt…..