BIRD QUESTION FOR TOM

[soccermom]

Tom,
In the midst of all the challenges in my life, my husband wants to buy me a purple martin house for our anniversary (I sent him to Montana for a geology field camp and all I get is a "stinkn" bird house?.) but it's what i really want.
Do you have any suggestions? what kind, where do i place it, and even..... are there purple martins in the philadelphia area?

thanx beth moose & sandy at the bridge

[Tom]

Hi Beth,

Purple Martins are gregarious birds - that is, they like the company of their own species. Thus, a multiple cavities are important to have when trying to attract them. People do this using single, multiple-cavity bird house constructions, arrangements of hollowed out gourds, an in other ways. The most conventional way is probably to erect a multi-cavity house on a tall pole.

Construction materials vary for a typical martin house. One feature that they share is that martin houses are typically light in color to keep them cooler. I've got a martin house that I received some years ago that is made from aluminum, is primarily white and has a silvered roof.

Maintaining the bird house is important. Martin houses are typically set pretty high and a method of keeping them clean and, during the off-season, closed up (to deter nesting sparrows) is important. The house that I have has plugs that I can set into the openings to close up the house and uses a rope-and-pulley system to allow me to raise and lower the birdhouse to perform seasonal maintenance and cleaning. I personally like this system very much.

Proper placement of a martin house is, perhaps above all, the most important factor in attracting purple martins provided you have them in your area. They are definitely in the Philly area as their range extends far north into Canada on the eastern side of North America. Poor placement will result in your inability to attract the species. In fact, it is the features of my home's lot that keeps me from being able to successfully attracting them year to year.

Purple martins like to have their nests relatively close to people, but not too close - something like 30 to 100 feet from your home. They don't like structures or trees where predators could hide near their nest, so you have to make sure that you pick a very open area with no trees at, above, or near the height of the nest within about 40-50 feet of the house. It's also good to have a water supply nearby - like a pond or a lake - but this is less important than proper siting of the birdhouse.

There's plenty of good advice to be found on the web from birding sites. Here's one that I stumbled across that gives good information: http://www.purplemartin.org/main/mgt.html.

A lot of people who have success attracting purple martins really enjoy them. I hope that, if you have the proper environment to attract them, that you do give it a go and have great success doing so. They are a wonderful species to watch and to be familiar with.

Let me know how you do.

Tom