Purple Martin Forum

I built a T-14 out of the veranda PVC boards from Home Depot also. It has seemed to work well. It has held up well for 3 years. The PVC boards seem to hold paint for the roof colors etc as well. I had 3 pair nest in it this year. I think the glue is important to hold it all together. I have a cedar ...

I had one unpaired ASY male last year. He left for a week a couple times but would always come back and wound up building a complete nest and all in one of my gourds. I am in central Michigan and we don’t have many martins. There are 4 local colonies counting mine that I know of and we each only get...

I’m in central Michigan. I have 3 ASY males of today. The first birds were reported here in the last week, but they just started coming in more in the last day or two. I’m worried about birds that don’t have anyone to feed them. We are looking at a stretch we’re we won’t hit 50 degrees from Monday n...

Do you have to take them off when you lower the racks for next checks? My parents just got their first pair in Florida. We have a stovepipe guard on the pole but no netting yet.

Dennis.

I feel It comes down to one thing. If you are willing to put in the effort to keep sparrows and starlings out of the housing then by all means open it up when the earliest birds return. If you don’t have time to keep the other birds out then you should wait for the SY birds. Many sparrows have found...

1 pair first year
0 pair second year
1 pair third year
3 pair fourth year.

Asy

Has anyone heard from taxidermy lady this year? I always enjoyed her posts and I haven't see anything from her this year.

Dennis

I have three nesting pair this year, up from one last year. The beginning of June I had an additional ASY male show up. He has built a nest with green leaves, but has failed to find a female. The last couple weeks a SY male or two would show up once in a while. As of the last two days I have had 4 S...

I have both crescent and conelly II entrances. I have had 3 different instances of a bird not wanting to go in the crescent entrances. Some birds will fly right in just like they are a big round hole. The three times I saw a bird not fit they both tried for a half hour - 45 mins to get in and would ...

Just my two cents, but I never remove a sparrow nest until the male sparrow has been dispatched. Before I had martins I removed a nest around 14 days in a row and they just kept rebulding. If they lay eggs, then you can usually trap them at that point. Removing the nest just ticks them off. I even h...

Hello everyone I have 3 pair nesting. Two of them have eggs so far. My original pair that was here last year have 4 eggs so far and the third pair to show up have 1 egg. I believe the third female is a SY female. Spring was late and cool this year so the leaves have really just come out in the last ...

I was able to find a time this afternoon that the martins were gone, so I lowered the house and put the trap back in. I was able to catch the male sparrow. The female is being reluctant now but hopefully I will get her as well.

Update, she came back the following morning. I got up early to watch and the male came out of that gourd by himself and was flying around and calling a bit. The other two pair were just sitting on their gourd very calm like normal. After they had been outside for about a half hour I was outside and ...

I have had three pair hanging around for 10 days after only having 1 pair last year. All three pair are using gourds that I have underneath my two T14’s. About 4-5 days ago I had a couple pair of sparrows trying to move in. This morning about 10am I decided I would lower one of the houses down to pu...

I had one pair in 2016 none in 2017 and one again in 2018. It looks like I have 3 pair spending the nights and just starting to think about near building in central Michigan. It is really cool to have 6 birds around. It feels like so many compared to 1 pair. Maybe I will get lucky and. They will dra...

I had been getting super worms (zoophobas) at a local pet store. I originally thought they were just big meal worms. I ordered more from flukers which is when I realized they were not meal worms. Flukers seems to be a good place to get crickets and meal worms etc. they arrive live. If you order larg...

Thank you for your replies. Kathy, does that mean that any insect that is frozen has no value? I have been buying crickets and super worms and putting them in the freezer and using as needed. I have gone through way more than I thought I would but it is so fun to feed them!!! I have been thawing the...

Hello Everyone, I have one ASY pair again this year with 5 babies, and a couple SY males hanging around daily. My birds showed up during an ice storms, and I was able to train them to supplemental feed after 3 days of freezing temps. I have continued to feed them all summer. They lost most of their ...

I had the same thing happen on my t14 with s&k tunnels on Monday. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it’s head poking out. They are a lot stronger than I thought. Hard to hold on to.