A couple of the things I am studying this season :
1. Does a dark ChirpyNest interior make a cavity more attractive to the martins.
2. Will blocking off adjacent cavities,of the four compartment ChirpyNest, early in the season, prevent multiple cavity domination and eggs being laid in adjacent cavities.
Here I painted every other cavity of the four compartment ChirpyNest. Overall I painted about half of the ChirpyNest houses at my colony. I will be able to see if there is s preference as best building begins.
Here I blocked cavities between ones left open until the open cavities are claimed. During the last two years martins have laid eggs either accidentally or intentionally in one or more of the cavities above or below the brood cavity.
By blocking these I hope to prevent this and when SY birds arrive I plan to open. I will see how these two experiments go.