Educate Yourself About the Martins and Their Housing
Gourds for Martins
The Purple Martin will claim nesting houses in early January after arriving form wintering in Brazil, on the Gulf Coast, but there are some males that move north, and will settle in their northern edge ranges, in early April. If you are lucky enough you can watch these elegant members of the swallow family as they swoop, and soar across the sky, and listen to their song, one of the most cheerful sounds of spring.
The Purple Martin will mostly nest in artificial gourds, and boxes, but there are some Florida, and Pacific Coast Martins that still nest the old fashioned way, in dead trees, riddled with woodpecker’s cavities, and rock crevices. Martins are also colonial nester's, choosing sites where there are many good locations close together, but these locations are hard to find, and become frequent hunting grounds for predators.
Therefore Martin houses is an attractive choice to natural cavities, but such housing also attracts nesting competitors like the European Starlings, and House Sparrows witch will occupy these residents before the Martins come back from their winter migration.
There are Martin experts that has discovered that when nesting Martins are given a choice, they prefer gourd-shaped hosing over the classic multiple-compartment houses. The House Sparrow and the European Starlings tend to prefer houses which will minimize the completion between the two species.
Native Americans like the Chickasaws and the Choctaws had knowledge about the fearlessness of the Martins to drive away predators like hawks, trespassing into the Indian tribes poultry flocks. So, to keep the Martins around, the Indians would build gourds, and hang them from stout young trees, witch they had removed all the upper branches from, and the short stubs would now become perfect multi-nesting spots. If there where no available trees around, they would build crossbars, and mount them atop a post.
