The Low-profile ChirpyNest

January 16, 2022

Each purple martin season, I attempt to experiment in some way. Last season I had the idea to make a low profile chirpyNest house. The thinking is to question the size of housing in regard to height of cavity. In making a prototype of a low profile house, I also made the low profile ChirpyNest wider. In 2021, the prototype was a success in that it fledged A large brood of five young by an adult pair of martins. This pair settled in at the end of April.

This year I am continuing my experiment by offering a pole of low profile houses. The ideal is to look for a preference by the martins. The low Profile House is 9 inches wide and 5 inches high with the new starling resistant entry.

A bit of background that makes this an interesting experiment on my part is that the location of this new pole is actually where my Castle house has been for the past 20 some years. My castle house, a 24 room modified to 12 room double size cavities, has had very limited nesting pair over the past 5 to 8 years so I’m tired of having it there without productivity while at the same time the three ChirpyNest that hang off the bottom of my castle house have always been occupied by at least two pair and some years three pair.

By changing the castle house and putting up a modified Troyer super system 36 rack, this new rack will hold 24 ChirpyNest. I will be offering six regular ChirpyNest houses , six regular ChirpyNest houses with a false ceiling and 12 of the new low profile wide ChirpyNest houses.

My modified Troyer super system 36 rack with 12 low profile, 6 low profile modified ChirpyNest and 6 regular ChirpyNest.

By doing it this way and offering the variety of three different cavities I’ll be able to at least see if there’s some sort of preference amongst the styles based on which units are claimed first and total number of cavities occupied.

A modified Chirpynest with false ceiling creating a low profile interior.

Over a short term it may be difficult to make any conclusions as to whether a low profile house has benefits over the regular ChirpyNest, but being a cavity nesting bird maybe martins will feel more secure in a less spacious cavity with regards to height. I think it’s proven that they benefit from a roomier cavity floor. All ChirpyNest offer this spacious cavity floor.

I have verified the advantages of the ChirpyNest with regards to cavity environment, and I have grown my colony to its largest size ever with 103 active nests and 89 successful nests to fledge young in 2021, I am anxious to experiment with this low profile house.

ChirpyNest on the left / Low profile ChirpyNest on right

I started the development of ChirpyNest in 2015 in response to devastating owl predation at my Site. In 2016 I offered the first ChirpyNest houses. These first houses were 4 cavity units and I was able to confirm that martins will use the ChirpyNest system. In 2017 and 18 I developed the single cavity ChirpyNest and began offering them to other landlords. In 2019 I eliminated all plastic gourds at my site in order to reduce my pre-mature fledges and jumpers and to commit fully to ChirpyNest. I now seldom have a fledgling on the ground where in the past it was an annual event to spend a couple of weeks picking young off the ground and trying to figure where it came from. The owls, while still making visits, are not causing nest abandonment or preventing my colony from growing.

I could leave well enough alone, but I can’t help but wonder if there are other improvements that might benefit my martins and the low profile ChirpyNest house is a fun project to advance this quest.

For 2022 I made 200 of these low profile houses. I am erecting 12 at my site and have already sent 20 to other landlords that wanted to try them. At this time I am not offering them on my website but if you are interested, email me and I can sell them through emailing. The houses are $45 each plus shipping. These houses also include the improved starling resistant entry similar to the modified excluder and are made from a slightly thicker aluminum (.04 vs .034 thickness). This change in material thickness was due to supply issues with the .034 material. Email tom@chirpynests.com Let me know how many you would be interested in along with your address. I will calculate shipping and send a PayPal invoice.

As martins are arriving in Florida, excitement for the 2022 season is growing every day. Its time to get ready. For 2022 I am offering a total of 140 ChirpyNest houses along with ten T-14 cavities.

My prototype low profile house and the ASY male parent of five new martins that took to the skies from this house in 2021.

Young hatching and mystery happening!

May 28, 2021

The Memorial Day weekend makes the beginning of the brood rearing stage at my Abingdon VA colony site. My first eggs began hatching on Wednesday or Thursday of this past week. Active nests, those with eggs , climbed from 20 on May 19 to 78 on May 27th. I anticipate more to become active as many other nests have fresh leaves meaning ‘ready for eggs’. It is never a sure thing that these nests will receive eggs but I expect quite a few will. I will do another nest check on Monday and that will give me a better feel to how the numbers will pan out. Even after that I usually get one or two late nests after the first week of June but after twenty five years one thing for certain is that nothing is certain.

ChirpyNest G 7 with my first hatchling of the season on Thursday May 27. . This is a same day hatch and the other four eggs should hatch within a day of this one.

A follow up on my extra wide ChirpyNest cavity. This cavity is occupied by an ASY pair. ASY means after second year meaning that these birds are adult martins and have made the migration trip at least twice in their lifetime. Adult martins will usually have larger clutches of eggs and have better success raising young. I really like the extra room of this cavity and I think the young will as well. This nest contains 5 eggs as of Thursday but I will have to do one more check before knowing if five is the egg total since my previous check on May 19th found no eggs. Martins will lay one egg per day until finished and will begin incubation when the second to last egg is laid. It’s fascinating that they know when they will be finished laying.

The ASY pair occupying the wide ChirpyNest.

Nest bowl tucked in the left of the wide ChirpyNest.

Now on to the Mystery

Thursday morning as I checked on my birds I was shocked to see this ChirpyNest door hanging atop my T-10 house. Looking around I found that it came from the new rack added this spring. Happily, the pair of young birds occupying the house were sitting in a doorless ChirpyNest. It didn’t take long to figure that an owl must have paid a visit and somehow pulled the door off but how the heck did it end up here. After retrieving the door by putting a screw in the end of a ten foot piece of PVC to make a hook, I found blood on the underside of the porch. The owl must have hit the house in an attack, and got its talon caught between the porch and the perch. As it flew off the door was pulled of the house and it somehow removed it while perched atop the T-10. Fortunately it didn’t fly off into the great expanse and drop the door somewhere never to be found. I’ve witnessed owls attacking and I can see this as a plausible explanation. No other signs such as owl feathers were found and have not been found all season so I cannot know for sure. I believe the birds were in the cavity and the whole premise of ChirpyNest is that martins will tuck deep in the cavity in such an event. When I saw these two perched in the open house I was relieved and reassured that ChirpyNest protected them. I have no way of knowing if the attack occurred in the AM before dawn, or during the night. Hopefully this owl will steer clear of the site due to what had to be a perplexing event for it.

Nest checks and observation will be important going forward to monitor whether There are other visits. Since my colony was devastated by owl predation form 2010 to 2015, I’ve built back up and I attribute the success to the ChirpyNest design. Resident owls are still around but their devastation on my site have ended and my numbers have increased to their highest totals of the 25 years i’ve managed my site.

Below are photos of this mysterious event.

I was greeted by this sight on Thursday morning. A chirpyNest door perched atop my T-10 house.

The location of the missing door is on the new rack added this spring. This second year pair is wondering why they lost their door. I believe they remained safely tucked deep in their cavity.

The only sign of what had to be an owl, that I could find. No blood could be seen on the top of the porch.

Trying something different

February 13, 2021

Another rainy cold day this February 13 gave me a chance to put together an idea I had last year. Since martins are low profile birds I wondered why and if they really need a cavity that is 6 inches plus in height, especially if there could be added width. Many of the natural cavities used by birds are much smaller than I would expect. When looking at a brood of five or six young martins, having a deep cavity gives them extra room to move around and develop. The ChirpyNest cavity is just over 12 inches deep. Natural gourds are always better if they are 8-10 inches wide. To get an 8-10 inch gourd the height is often at least as tall. This may be beneficial for ventilation but with the built in ventilation of ChirpyNest I thought ‘why not have a lower height and a wider cavity to see how they like it."‘

My thinking is that a shorter cavity may give an even greater sense of security for a cavity nesting species like the Purple Martin.

Using some of the material i’ve accumulated from the development of ChirpyNest I fashioned together this prototype that has a nest tray measuring 8.5 inches wide. The tray height and depth is the same but the box height has been reduced by 1.5 inches. The door is turned inside out with cedar strips on each side of the door to fill the gap, saving me the trouble of fabricating a whole new door. The end result is not pretty on the outside but inside is just a wider version of ChirpyNest.

I really don’t know if I will be able to evaluate this model to say if is better or not but one of the parameters I will use is how quickly this one will be claimed. The other will be to study how the young grow and act inside. If the martins do not use it at all then I will consider it to be not attractive to the martins. If it is claimed early , I will think that maybe they like the lower height.

Its always fun to experiment and I will be looking forward to this experiment. I will keep you updated. My plan is to put this house on my round rack. If all goes well I may take the next step and offer this model (in a much more refined design) as a second style ChirpyNest.

A low profile version of ChirpyNest I will try this season

The tray on this prototype is 8.5 inches wide compared to 6 .38 inches on the original ChirpyNest

What to expect when you’re an expecting Purple Martin landlord.

January 30, 2021

A purple Martin landlord and wanna-be landlord gets as antsy an an expectant mother.

Here are some of the things to get you ready and calm your mind as you wait for that beautiful martin song to fill your back yard.

Don’t panic when purple dots fill the scout arrival map in your area. Even at established sites a scout can be reported weeks before arriving at another nearby established site.......

There can be several weeks between your first sighting and your first influx of martins. In 2020 my first martin (scout) returned on March 6. I saw this bird a couple of times, then not again until three birds arrived on March 19th.

After that numbers increased almost daily.

SY birds are 3-4 weeks later. In 2020 my first second year birds arrived around April 20.

Martins do not come on one bus. SY birds arrive for up to ten weeks. In my area ( southwest Virginia) I typically have a late nesting pair that lays its first egg mid June. So I consider mid June to be the closing of the window if trying to start a new colony in southwest Virginia. That is a three to four month window of opportunity. I hear of many landlord Wanna-be’s that get discouraged way too early in the season. More northerly sites have a much later window.

Most adult martins ( termed after second year ASY birds ) have homes they return to so don’t panic when your neighbors birds are back, and martins show little interest in your new setup. New setups are typically started by last year’s young, termed second year (SY) birds. Their arrival often starts 3-4 weeks after the first influx of older birds. In my case in 2020 the first SY birds arrived 6 weeks after my first scout. SY birds continue arriving and passing through for 6 to 8 weeks.

One pair is a great start for new sight. That’s all it takes to get a thriving colony started. Once you get that first pair your colony can grow exponentially each year. That pair will attract others. That first year is a fun experience watching the actions of other martins that may be lured to your site by the activity of your first pair.

It’s more difficult to attract that first pair the farther north you go. That’s because there are less martins that travel that far. Every martin that nests in US passes through a southern state. It only makes sense that they can attract martins easier. The further north the later the window of opportunity is open. It’s always important to notice the location of posts you read and their content. Many times southern landlords are posting of their martins leaving before the arrival of SY birds in the north. That does not mean you cannot still get your first pair.

When you do get martins that are interested in your site, they will not hang around all day. Often a quick visit in the morning is all you get. Even at my site that has had martins for 25 years It’s not unusual for the early birds to be away from the site for most or all of the day causing me to worry that they might have decided to abandon me. My concerns are erased around sundown as the birds return finally to roost for the night. As spring progresses and mid April rolls around the martins spend more and more time around the site until the nesting season begins with all its excitement. This usually coincides with the arrival of the second year birds. It’s a great time of the season as a purple Martin landlord.

Nest building may start in earnest, but may suddenly stop for a time especially it the weather sours. In 2020 my martins hit it hard then stopped several times due to sudden changes in the weather, usually cold snaps. While older birds will nest and raise young ahead of SY birds, in 2020 due the the stop and starting, all my 87 Pairs raised their young during the same time period with the first egg being laid May 24, at least three weeks later than normal. This resulted in all my birds fledging about the same time, a quite extraordinary season. Of the 87 active nests (an active nest is a nest with at least one egg laid) 79 successfully fledged 298 young. Older birds will have larger clutch sizes, better hatch rates and better fledge rates than younger birds.

One last thing to note. Once egg laying begins, at both established and especially new sites there is a strange silence at the site. With the nest being tended by the female, the pair may seem to have disappeared. At a young site with only one or two pair you may think you lost your martins. A quick check of the nest at this time is reassuring that all is well. Don't worry, it will not scare your martins away, even if you disturb the female that may be sitting on her eggs. I think they do not want to draw attention to the nest and they exit and enter quickly with little fanfare so as not to draw the attention of predators. They also have to take care of their feeding needs while tending the nest and have little time to rejoice. Once the eggs begin to hatch the fun really kicks in for the Martin landlord. Watch and enjoy.