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? about Purple Martin houses?

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    ? about Purple Martin houses?

    How on God's green earth do you keep these aggressive/invasive sparrows out of a newly put up Purple Martin House? 12' off the ground and in the open, but we looked in it today and out of the 6 sections out of 12 we looked in and cleaned out all 6 were with sparrow nests. Have not seen any Purple martins yet!

    #2
    Pellet gun or 410! My wife was reading that sometimes it takes a couple of years for martins to move in.

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      #3
      I understand the pellet gun, but these house being plastic, what do you do, shoot holes thru it?

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        #4
        Do you have the crescent shaped starling resistant entrances?

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          #5
          Purple martins have been here since mid February, you might be to late for this year. Ours showed up after the freeze.
          Another alternative is a sparrow trap

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            #6
            Get a gourd rack. The plastic gourds have traps you can install if the sparrows move in.

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              #7
              Have not seen a Martin yet this year; and they been coming to my 3 Houses for 20y years or so...plenty sparrows though to keep BB gun busy

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                #8
                ? about Purple Martin houses?

                I'm a first year PM landlord. I have a cheap plastic S&K 12 family house but plugged off certain entrances in the house to make the compartments larger so that makes it only a 6 family house. I installed the starling resistant doors and the gourds have porches. The gourds are attached to the pole just below the house. I put some dried pine needles inside all compartments and added 2 PM decoys.

                My plan was to put the pole up on Valentine's Day but Snowmageddon put a damper on that. I didn't get it put up until Sun 2/21. I saw my first PM scout on Fri 3/19. I now have a couple of the holes in the house and 2 gourds occupied pretty regularly. I've had zero problems with starlings or sparrows so far.

                All I'll say is PMs are some really cool birds and my wife and I are enjoying the activity every morning and evening.

                Last edited by RascalArms; 04-06-2021, 06:51 AM.

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                  #9
                  Its a constant battle between them and starlings, regardless of all the precautions taken. Like others have said, pellet gun and cleaning out the sparrow nests is a big chore. (Hint: when cleaning out the nests, I burned them. I used to just throw them on the ground but the sparrows were using it to rebuild.)

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                    #10
                    The crescent shape entrance works to keep the sparrows out.

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                    Last edited by HUNTERMAGNUM; 04-06-2021, 09:21 AM.

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                      #11
                      Love our PM's. We have had tenants for about 10 years now. Have an established colony. (Have 4 houses with a total of 40 nests cavities. Had 30 productive pair last year)
                      Hate sparrows (use crescent holes to deter starlings)
                      1) Pellet gun (shoot when not danger of hitting / busting martin house)
                      2) Pull sparrow nests every couple days (discard nests, they will re-use materials if you just throw on ground)
                      3) traps, some are more effective than others. I used scratch grains and caught / released too many cardinals. Now trying nesting material, have caught a few. I have just ordred some to go inside the nest cavity so you can target the more stubborn ones)
                      :

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                        #12
                        Originally posted by Aggiebow88 View Post
                        Love our PM's. We have had tenants for about 10 years now. Have an established colony. (Have 4 houses with a total of 40 nests cavities. Had 30 productive pair last year)
                        Hate sparrows (use crescent holes to deter starlings)
                        1) Pellet gun (shoot when not danger of hitting / busting martin house)
                        2) Pull sparrow nests every couple days (discard nests, they will re-use materials if you just throw on ground)
                        3) traps, some are more effective than others. I used scratch grains and caught / released too many cardinals. Now trying nesting material, have caught a few. I have just ordred some to go inside the nest cavity so you can target the more stubborn ones)
                        :

                        You, sir.........are winning!!! [emoji106][emoji106]

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