Purple Martin Bird Houses: How to Keep Them Coming Back.

Purple Martin Bird Houses are large bird houses and are put up by a number of people. However a large amount of people who use these bird houses find it difficult to attract or keep breeding purple martins. Most often it is found that once purple martins nest in your location they come back as long as their site is managed properly. The following tips will increase your chances of attracting martins and keeping them.

Location is the number one reason why people find it hard to attract or keep their breeding birds. Martins like their space, so placing their bird house in the largest open space you have with approximately 30-120ft. from human housing is preferred. The bird house should be the tallest thing with no other trees as tall and be far away from trees if possible 40-60ft is good but not required as others have attracted purple martins with as little as 15ft. from trees. It would benefit the birds if you were to keep all shrubs, bushes, wires and vines away from the pole.

Timing is Everything. Well timing does play a part in attracting purple martins. Once you have established a breeding site, your purple martin birdhouse, the same purple martins are likely to return year after year. Why is this? Female purple martins are known to exhibit high levels of site fidelity. It doesn’t matter where you are located, keeping your home open through August would be sufficient. In North America, martins can start nesting and arriving in early to late June. In July and August this years young will start searching for next year’s breeding sites. These birdhouses should be stored or put up during the winter months.

Competition is another reason these birds may not return as the sites have been claimed by others and then aggressively chase the martins away. Tearing out nests may prevent the competition from housing in the purple martin birdhouse. Resistant entry holes or plugging with paper cups or door stops and possibly putting up other housing will assist with keeping the competition out. You should check the birdhouse regularly.

Martins like primarily white houses. Dimensions should be at least 6x6 with the holes at least 1 inch above the floor and 2 1/8in diameter. You will want to have easy access to your home for site control and cleaning out any unwanted nests. To replace any active housing it is recommended to place the new birdhouse close to the current housing for at least one season.

Weather variations effect insect availability causing the martins to starve as insects are the primary source of food for these birds. Some weather extremes can produce insect numbers causing nest parasites. Never use pesticides in your homes. To get ride of the nest parasites, you may need to replace the infected nest.

By following these simple tips and being proactive. You will increase your abilities to keep and/or bring the desired Purple Martins to your site. You may also want to learn more about migrating maps for the Martins to find out when you should expect to have the martins migrating to your specific area.