Martin Gourd Houses

The purple martins birds is the largest bird out of the swallow family, these birds eat a large number of dragonflies, mosquitoes, wasps, house flies, and beetles each year. The purple martin likes to fly to the US starting in January to about mid April. The purple martins spend most of there time when they are not breeding in parts of Brazil and then travel to the US to make families. Most of these birds are use to living in homes that humans have provided for them. They also like to live in single unit housing and in a large number of colonies. Martin gourd houses are built like mini apartment buildings for the birds to live in.

You can purchase a Martin birdhouse gourd off of eBay and a lot of other various sites that sell them. The smaller Martin houses cost about 20 to 50 dollars and the larger ones can cost 100 dollars or more. When you purchase your Martin house make sure that it is in a very suitable location for the birds. The house should be placed in an area where there is at least 25 feet of space on all 4 sides. The houses should be set up on a pole and should stand 12 feet to 18 feet from the ground. The make the cleaning process easy make sure you can lower the house somehow so you would not have to stand on a ladder or climb anything.

A lot of people will put up a house for the Purple Martins each year but very few are lucky to actually have the birds come to their home. If a person do get lucky they should just make sure it’s kept nice because most likely the birds will return to nest there again. Check the net to see when the Purple Martins are due to migrate to your state so that you will be prepared for them.