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Purple Martin Housing Failure?

Rick Wrote on March 1st:

FirstName: Rick
Enter your city : Melbourne
Enter your request : Hi: I put up an aluminum Martin house about three years ago, but I haven't had any success yet.
It's in my backyard and it is about 15 feet up in the air and away from trees. I live about 400 yards from the ocean, and that's the closest body of water. Do you think I have any chance of attracting them? I found a small colony in a yard right on the beach, so I guess they can use the ocean. What do you think?

Thanks!

Rick
Cape Canaveral

Our Reply

Rick,

Your habitat sounds like a great location for Purple Martins, especially since a neighbor is a Purple Martin landlord.

One of the reasons that you may not see birds at your site is the internal dimensions of the metal house nest cavities. One indicator would be if when you measure the nest cavity it is less that 6 inches by six inches as a minimum.

Our first house was a metal, Octagon, shaped house that the birds would look at but, not stay overnight nor nest. When we replaced the house with Purple Martin Association listed gourds we got results.

This is what we would try:

1. Measure the internal dimensions of a current individual nest cavity -- must be greater
   than 6x6in If the cavities are larger than 6x6 carefully read the attachments to see
   what could be the problem. Then continue to the recommendations below.
   
2. Visit the Purple Martin Association and consider purchasing three Super Gourds from their online store.
   
3. Hang these new gourds below the present housing
   
4. Put about a handful of dry pine needles inside the gourds
   
5. Consider purchasing a Purple Martin Decoy or two and put on top of the metal housing

You still have a about a month or so to attract Sub-adults - Purple Martins born last spring.

Check out a couple articles from the Purple Martin Association that may help.
Attracting and Managing Purple Martins
Standards for Purple Martin Housing
Top 10 Reasons Why People Fail to Attract Martins

Let me know how things turn out.

See our Purple Martin web page for information about our site:
Our Purple Martins

Thanks for visiting our web site.

Regards...

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