Purple Martin Forum

Thinking about controlling mites in nests for the first time in 2021. As an alternative to a popular insecticide dust to control mites, I would like to try a liquid spray. To avoid violating forum policy I won't name the product or provide a link. It is an all natural control for mites and bedbugs i...

Purple martins love to nest in Texas so that is a big plus for you. First step and I recommend doing it now is to decide what type of housing you want. Start simple with your first housing choice and then add on from there. By simple I mean a gourd rack that can hold 6, 8, or 12 gourds, or a 12-unit...

https://www.wunderground.com/radar/us I actually prefer this site because it allows me to zoom in on a roost radar image such that I can choose a location within a county where to begin searching for the roost. The drawback is that it only stores the last hour of radar so you have to remember to loo...

https://vortex.plymouth.edu/myo/rad/nids.html This weather site was shared years ago on the forum - cannot remember who specifically. The nice thing about this radar site is that you can choose a day and time. Instructions: RADAR SITE - choose Spinks AP/Dallas-Ft Worth, TX (FWS) on the drop down men...

https://www.purplemartin.org/research/1 ... ?roost=458

Link above displays a roost report from 2019 at the Hollywood movie theater in Garland, Texas. Today's radar shows a huge roost near Garland again.

Instead of taking the house down now to check it, you might ask someone with a 12-foot ladder to check the house in its upright position. I have experienced the same thing some years. When the birds fledged, the entire colony moved off to a new location and my yard became very quiet.

Maybe two years ago or more there was a request for help on the forum in reference to a research project where cameras would be used to identify insects brought to nestlings. I may have missed the report but does anyone have the results from that study? I think it was conducted in a New England stat...

https://www.purplemartin.org/research/1 ... ?roost=487

Looks like a good roost occurs in Nashville annually. The link above is a 2017 report.

A number of you have planned and coordinated roost watch events in past years. The martins are the main attraction of course but I was wondering what additional martin-related activities and/or programs worked best at your roost watch? Anything specific for children? At the last PMCA conference in E...

Well even if martins fail to nest at your site this summer, you can look forward to a fun roost experience in early August - just 2 months away. Last year thousands of martins staged at Lake Reba in Richmond each evening before flying off to the roost site just outside of town. The birds put on quit...

Martins eat salt marsh mosquitoes. There are numerous types of salt marsh mosquitoes and some are large, are active during the day, and travel up to 10 miles inland in large groups to feed on cattle and horses. Perfect prey for martins. Dave Duit posted details about the origin of the mosquito story...

Jeff there is a roost at Greensburg, Indiana in Decator County. It was visible on radar this morning possibly on the north side of town. Greensburg looks like a small town where you could find the roost without too much trouble.

That roost has not been reported by any local birders yet as far as I know. The roost ring still looked good this morning northeast of Louisville. The center of the ring appeared to originate just across the county line into Oldham County somewhere between Highway 42 and I-71. Some smaller roads in ...

I visited the roost on Sunday, Aug. 4. Numbers of birds in the air probably peaked around 8:45 pm and by 9:03 pm all the birds had fallen out of the sky and down into the woodlot. There were probably tens of thousands of birds in the air as is usual for a roost in this part of the state. Several oth...

I used to call this roost the "Lexington roost" but the birds have moved around enough from year to year that central Kentucky is more accurate. A large donut is visible on radar each morning that covers all of Madison County. A local birder discovered the roost on the south side of Richmond a coupl...

There is a roost visible on radar on the NE end of Louisville. I have not tried to pinpoint the location yet via radar. It appears to be in Oldham County somewhere near where Route 42 intersects with Route 1793 between the towns of River Bluff and Goshen maybe. I will try to get a better location to...

Wish I knew that answer too Lewis. My birds will disappear on those cold late March afternoons when temps increase into the upper forties. They are finding food somewhere on those days because they have never accepted supplemental feeding from me. There is an 8,000 acre lake about 8 miles west of my...

I think that the most important thing to do on raw land is to keep an area around the poles mowed like a lawn. The more area that is mowed around the poles, the more likely that martins will use your new site. Maybe some others can corroborate my observations about the importance of mowing.

Martins arrive before barn swallows here in NE Kentucky. Barn swallows are usually weeks later but the Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Kentucky shows some records of March arrival dates for barn swallows.

I counted birds for Project Feeder Watch yesterday and today. Twenty-seven house sparrows may be a new record count since we moved here in 2004. It will take some work to trap and shoot that many house sparrows between now and April. It was not all bad news though. Ended up with 17 species of birds ...