purple martin houses

For a lot of people who want to get into purple martin landlording, the process of finding your first purple martin house is often a very confusing time. As both a buyer and retailer who has been in your shoes, I know that if I were to tell you to go out and buy the biggest martin house you can find would be a huge mistake for you and for me alike. Sure, you might opt to buy from me one of my more expensive houses, the problem though is that you might be discouraged by your small colony the first year into purple martin landlording and you will never return to buy anything from me again. Therefore, I want to be honest with you!

So, before going any further, let me just tell you, don't go out and buy the biggest purple martin house out there! A myth is that every purple martin that comes across your birdhouse will be staying there to nest. That is just not true. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of martins who have already nested one year will return to their old house to nest again assuming that everything went well for them in the previous season. It is most often younger adults who have migrated for the year and do not have room who will find a place in your martin house. This means that you are dependent on the growth in population around you.

At the same time, I do want to encourage you to look into the future. Like I said, the ASY's will often return back to their previous purple martin houses (when they were SY's). This means that as you go along, year after a year a good landlord will have a growing colony. Many people have multiple purple martin houses in their yard for their ever-growing colony. In fact, many landlords will end up reaching their maximum that they want to take care of. It is just like dogs, you can have too many because the purple martins need some care. Therefore, be thinking about what kind of purple martin house will let you expand a little bit before having to upgrade (if you choose to do so).