dakotamaid

Hello Caroline from another original N Dakotan. I'm from north of Bismarck. Now live in Nebraska. Love your birds and set ups.

quiltjoey

What a beautiful "hotel" for your guests!!! We have the gourds and the first year we had a few come but they have never come back since. We just. Have the run of the mill type birds: chickadees, tufted tit mouse, cardinals, blue jays, mourning doves, brown thrashers, etc. we do have the painted buntings in the early spring as they are indigenous to our area.
Yours are some I've never seen! Great pictures! Where did you get your gourds and what kind if nesting do you use? Maybe if we tried them, ours would come back....

Caroline94535

OneDoxieMom...Some of the gourds do not have porches, yet, because I have not gotten "a round tuit" to get them all installed yet. The birds love the porches and tend to claim those gourds first.

There are several modifications I make to my gourds - the natural ones, and the man-made Super Gourds and/or the Extruder Gourds. I add 3" PVC tunnels and/or porches, put 3/4" plumbing elbows near the top of the gourds' necks for more ventilation to keep the nests and chicks dryer and cooler and add hanging tubes so rain cannot drip down the hanging wires and into the nests.

This photo shows a SuperGourd, like the one shown with the two martins, with the access cap removed. You can see my fingers reaching in through the tunnel and the little "step" at the bottom of the tunnel. It helps the young birds grip the tunnel to get out. The tunnels help prevent hawks and owls from reaching inside with one foot and dragging out the little martins. The cedar chips are the pre-nests I put in before the birds arrive.

Feather3

Small world!! I have a Purple Martin colony too. Mine started back in 1998. Most of the Purple Martins in PA were wiped out during the 1972 Agnes Flood (rained for over 20 days straight). 5-6 birds visited my yard daily for a couple weeks in 1998, so we got them a house & they've come back every year since. I live in a small town that once had many martin houses. Sadly after the flood no martins returned & those houses fell to ruin.

The Audubon Society has told me I'm the only one, in our county, other than a few Amish farms that has Purple Mrtins. There are none straight north all the way to the NY border that we know of. Too many trees here. I have been asked to host a small group from the Audubon Society this summer. Bird clubs drop by to see them every year.

I have 2 T-10 houses & get 10-12 pair every year. So far I have 6 ASY Males, 2 ASY Females & 1 SY Female back. I have trained my colony to supplement feed via flipped crickets. Took me 3 years, but I have saved many due to bad weather or lack of bugs supplemental feeding. Trust me it's no fun bundled up in a Parka, blanket over legs, fingers freezing flipping crickets while it's snowing!! Done that a few times, but saving the Martins was well worth it. I was out in the rain twice yesterday flipping crickets. The night before we had golf ball size hail during a bad storm.

I too enjoy the few months they are here. I love taking care of them. Watching them fly high into the clouds totally out of sight when feeding. It's amazing how quickly they accept you doing nest checks. I've reached in & picked up an adult female off a nest to check for eggs/chicks.

Photos are the greatest, but here's 2 of my colony. 1of my T-10 houses & the other is Mom feeding a chick a dragonfly.

QuiltnNan

thanks for posting this thread... i was just reading about them in Birds and Blooms magazine. The specifics for their homes and environments is fascinating. I was surprised to see that they like crushed eggshells. love the pictures posted by both of you.

sandy l

Great pictures from both of you and KUDOS for helping some of our feathered friends.

celwood

What wonderful pictures. Loved seeing the purple martins.

sparkys_mom

Wow, what a wonderful thread this is. I love birds and it is just so fascinating to watch them. I just moved in March from a ground floor condo with a woods view to a 5th floor retirement apartment with two tiny balconies. I'm in the process of trying to figure out how to attract birds. I've never had anything so elaborate as you two, but I dearly love my little house wrens and the hummingbirds. I figure I have about a month to get some plants in and find a bird bath that doesn't take too much space. There are lots of tall trees near the building and I think that's a plus.

Meanwhile, I really enjoyed reading about your birds and since I know there is an appreciative audience here, I thought I'd share this video sent to me last week.

An epic chase caught on film, a squirrel star is born from The Washington Post

http://wapo.st/1clVpCT

This is a fascinating peek at the extraordinary world of a grey squirrel. Spectacular!

Battle Axe

One Amish neighbor has a Martin colony and even sells supplies. He is quite an expert on it and even has a telescope to watch them. Several years ago there was a cold snap after the birds had eggs that were hatching. There were no flying insects available and the babies started dying. So he ordered several pounds of flying tree crickets, hoping they would fly when released and feed his birds. But it was still too cold and the crickets would not fly. So the word was sent out and we all were over and hand tossed crickets, one at a time, into the air. The Martins quickly learned what we were doing. It was the strangest feeling to see this low flying bird line himself up with you. It's just like an A-10 fighter jet locking on a target. Then at the precise moment I was to underhand toss the cricket straight up. He always caught them and flew back to the nest. Next cricket please. I wore out my arm.

mkay

We live up by the Canadian border and have the purple martins too I love them too they sure do eat the mosquitoes up here . I built them a large condo birdhouse and it is packed every year holds 12 couples. Have not seen any yet this year but soon . Also get barn swallows and they love to build their nest in my front window under the hang out so I get to see them up close. They also eat lots of bugs. When you live out in country need all the bug eaters you can get.