Time to ready your bird habitats
Purple martins exploring area housing options for the spring
Let’s start with a revelation that may deflate your justification for providing purple martins with housing support. It turns out the forever belief that purple martins are among the most important mosquito predator is not true. Recent research has revealed that purple martins rely on larger insects for their food, including dragonflies; and dragonflies eat many more mosquitoes than martins do.
Last year was a tough year for purple martin families in our area because of the difficult weather conditions. This year seems to be proceeding with the same start. The arrival and nest selection last year was disrupted by the weather. Purple martins eat flying insects, and if the weather is too cold or wet in the spring, it disrupts the normal pattern of feeding and nesting.
What we would like to see is to have the unattached and adult purple martin families from the Amazon wintering grounds making exploratory visits to the available purple martin housing right now in our neighborhoods prior to making their decisions about suitable nesting sites.
Purple martins usually make those exploratory visits in February and early March. They will often select the same house they used in the last year, especially if it has desirable characteristics ike 40 feet between a birdhouse that reaches at least 12 feet into the air and the nearest tree of the same height. It is also most successful if the area at the base of the pole holding up the house is placed in soil with the brush removed and mowed level with the ground.
Another interesting purple martin preference is that their
homes be within 100 feet of a human dwelling. In my experience and that of other gardeners, resident purple martins are most likely to favor birdhouses close to the human residence’s over those farther away.
The house construction is
dominated by aluminum, wooden and gourd materials with dimensions of 6 inches wide, 6 inches high and 9 inches deep for each nesting box. The entrance hole should be one inch from the floor and 2 inches in diameter. I have found aluminum structures
that include a mounting pole purchased on the internet or from a local shop as easy to obtain and construct.
Right now, your purple martin house should be in the air and ready for the exploratory visits. A key factor is to have the nest entry holes blocked by the caps that are provided with the martin house kits or can be purchased to be used in your constructed house. Leave the caps blocking the entrance to the individual nests until the exploring martins show up for the first time this spring. The competition for the nests is strong between martins and English sparrows, so any advantage you can give the martins helps them successfully take possession of a nest and raise a family of young martins.
Purple martins are tolerant of lowering and manipulating the entrance hole caps, but unfortunately, so are English sparrows. Quite often, I end up with the two species sharing the larger house.
Move fast and join me in preparing housing for purple martins in your landscape.