Purple Martins and other wild friends.

[Wolf-Kim]

We have erected two purple martin houses this year and I think I saw the first scout yesterday. I came home to find a medium sized blackish bird flying in circles around the backyard, circling tighter and tighter, touched the purple martin house in the backyard and then flew off. I'm hoping he'll be back with friends!

We also have several bluebird houses placed throughout the property. Most have Eastern Bluebirds in them and the one closest to the house has a nesting pair of house wrens. They nest somewhere close to the house every year, last year it was in the tool barn inside a tool bag, yes they startled me several times, while looking for tools. I remember on year they nested in the tool barn in an old baseball glove.

We have also planted some birdhouse gourds in the garden and hope to grow plenty of gourds for future use.

I hope to add bathouses to the same poles the purple martins are on, this year. We have plenty of bats around, they can be spotted in the backyard and over the pond at dusk.

 

[Wifezilla]

We have a pair of woodpeckers that live in a hollow in one of the maple trees, rocky mountain finches that live in a hanging candle holder, and 1 bird house that the sparrows fight over every spring.

 

[dacjohns]

Tree swallows are also attracted to bluebird boxes.

I even had a flying squirrel in a bluebird box.

Those wrens are sure opportunistic little birds. Don't leave a shed open or they might take up residence.

 

[Occamstazer]

We've had a bloom of cardinals here lately. I've counted as many as a dozen males nibbling up corn in the chicken yard.

BTW, what are those gourd birdhouses designed to attract? My neighbor has T-shaped poles in his field with dozens and dozens of them.

 

[Farmfresh]

BTW, what are those gourd birdhouses designed to attract? My neighbor has T-shaped poles in his field with dozens and dozens of them.

That sounds like a purple martin set up to me.

 

[Wolf-Kim]

We've had a bloom of cardinals here lately. I've counted as many as a dozen males nibbling up corn in the chicken yard.

BTW, what are those gourd birdhouses designed to attract? My neighbor has T-shaped poles in his field with dozens and dozens of them.

Purple Martins! Greedy beautiful little bug eaters!

 

[mrs.puff]

We don't have martins, but we do have bats! They live in our shed. You can go out there at night and there's usually a few hanging there looking at you. I'm not sure where they go during the day. It's pretty funny to watch them eat a big old bug, because they crunch it all up, and throw the wings on the floor. There will be bug wings all over in there in the morning (plus some turds of course).

We've got flying squirrels too. Lots. They run all over our house at night.

 

[Aidenbaby]

Mrs Puff, bat guano is supposed to be excellent fertilizer. I hope you're tossing it in the compost bin.

 

[k0xxx]

This is our fourth year with a 16 room Purple Martin House. No Martins, but the Blue Bird love it and have been nesting it it each year. We'll be moving it at the end of this season, due to the new coop run needing more space. We'll put some additional Blue Bird boxes out, and maybe we'll actually get a few Martins next season.

We bought a small bat box, but our extension agent recommended a larger one. He said that the small ones are ok for summer, but in the winter there needs to be more room for more bats, or there isn't enough body warmth for them to survive. So, we'll be purchasing (or perhaps building) a larger one this summer.

My wife wages a sort of mini bird war each year with the Phoebe's, as they try to build nests under our porch roof. We let them do it for a few years and just cleaned up their droppings, but one year they brought an infestation of bird lice. That ended that. We have built several Phoebe houses and placed them about, to give them another option besides our porch. I still have a pair that is nesting in my old work shed this year.

We love watching birds, and have been trying to encourage them to nest around the property. We even had a porch turkey for a while. It would roost on our roof, and in the mornings it would preen on our front porch.

 

[mrs.puff]

There's not enough bat droppings to collect! Too bad! They don't even equal up to one big chicken poo.