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FIRST YEAR - 2001
My first year, I offered a single modified Mini Trio Castle with 4 natural gourds hung underneath the housing. I modified the Mini Trio by enlarging the interior compartments... making the once 12 rooms into 6. I also added porch dividers which were made by a good friend of mine, Jack Petty. I attached bean polls for added perching and for added strength from which I hung the gourds. Every compartment had a round hole entrance.
When I first erected the Trio, I didn't know of all the information that was available and the studies people have done to further understand the species. In particular, the recommendation that any Martin housing be a minimum of 40' away from any trees. So, not knowing any better, I put my first Martin house up 30' from a row of baby pines we had planted the year before. The Trio does, however, have three sides of open flyways (at least I did this right). After learning that the trees would eventually lead to problems when they started growing and surpassing the height of the housing, I decided to put any additional housing further back on my property by my garden, where it is wide open. My hope is when the pines start encroaching the Trio, the residing birds will move to the back of my yard to the other housing where it is wide open.
In total I offered 6 compartments and 4 gourds. My 1 pair fledged 3 babies.
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SECOND YEAR - 2002
The second year, I added a PMCA Expandable Gourd Rack, but further back on my property like I mentioned. The gourd rack is capable of holding 24 gourds, but I am only offering 12 at the moment. All 12 gourds had round holes. Once the rack starts to fill with birds, then I will expand and add more gourds, when needed. The gourd rack is over 400' from the Trio, which is quite a distance away. The nearest mature tree line is 250' away. Surprisingly, that year I had a lone male SY Martin make a partial nest, but he never found a mate.
In total I offered 6 compartments and 15 gourds. I had 3 pairs fledge a total of 13 babies.
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THIRD YEAR - 2003
In the past season, I finally added my Lonestar Goliad with home made porch dividers (which I won at martin Fest 2001) and a perching poll. I placed them 30' apart from one another on opposite sides of the expandable gourd rack. The combined total of compartments this year was an even mixture of houses & gourds, equaling 18 natural gourds & 18 housing compartments. Also new for this past year, I switched the Mini Trio and all of the round hole gourds to porched crescents, or SREH. I left the new Goliad with round holes because this was a new addition. My Martins took to the new entrances fairly easily and I intend on switching to 100% SREH in 2004. The Goliad fledged 4 nests in its first season being up!
To my surprise and delight, my good friend & engineer, Roger Schiller of McHenry Illinois, has made some impressive improvements to my Trio Mini Castle. The Martin house now has a new stronger poll, an attached 6 arm gourd rack which also acts as re-enforcement to the bottom of the house, a new winch instead of the rope, added perching rods and best of all, an integrated heating system!
This heating system is run through the inside of the house and low watt oven light bulbs covered in black barbeque paint are used to emits radiant heat throughout the entire house. The bottom three cavities have light bulb sockets in them which are set high up as not to touch any nesting material and/or would be Martin. Roger has thought of everything! He even thought of little socket stoppers to be put in when the system is not in use. Thanks again Roger! Your the best!!
In total I offered 18 compartments and 18 gourds. I had 12 pairs fledge a total of 53 babies.
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FOURTH YEAR - 2004
The Add-A-Rack was installed on the Goliad as well as changing the entrances from all round holes, to all crescents. This was my first season to have all of my entrances 100% SREH. There were 4 nests in the Goliad again this year. Two were in the house and two were in the gourds. I offered 18 compartments and 26 natural gourds for a total of 44 cavities. The Trio was full for the first time this season. The gourd rack had two nests, up from only one last year. I had a total of 16 pairs with a few non-mated sub-adult males.
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FIFTH YEAR - 2005
As luck would have it, I added a cedar Troyer T-14 with 4 Troyer *modified* horizontals hung underneath. This house was given to me by a good friend. I gave the house a new paint job, modified the doors with WDC - SREH entrances by Sandy Bunn, and added perching rods. I also added some 'BEHR Non-Skid Floor finish Additive' into the paint for traction on the roof and the porches. The metal pole is from the PMCA made specifically for the T-14. The house has nest insert trays and I bought an insert trap for any sparrows that try to nest. The house is now up next to my Expandable Gourd Rack & Lonestar Goliad. For its first year up, this style house attracted 6 pairs... Which makes this my new favorite style housing. 4 nested in the housing and 2 nested in the Horizontal gourds.
More modifications were made to the Trio, as if it hasn't been modified enough. =) I added a make-shift wall to separate the one large compartment into two again for the sparrow doors. This way, I can utilize two traps instead of wasting a double compartment for just one trap. I did not think of this at the time when I removed the walls to enlarge the compartments and there is no way for me to put one wall back now.
She isn't the prettiest fix, but it works so I am happy. I figure a Sparrow is more likely to enter a trap compartment if he/she can see another Sparrow in there if one is trapped. I always trap Sparrows in the Trio, especially when there are Martin eggs and/or newly hatched young. I would rather give up one or two compartment for trapping then potentially loose an entire nest to a Sparrow attack because my housing is full and there isn't any cavities available to them to try and nest in. This is working like a charm!
Another modification I made to the Trio is a home made nest wall..... Similar to the 'mud walls' some Martins build and they usually do in this style housing. Again, I improvised and created my own, but hopefully this will keep the nesting material in place and keep the babies a bit safer. Last year I noticed, when I did my nest changes at 10 days old, that the nesting material I would add would not stay in place. After a day or two it would be all matted down flat with most of it inadvertently getting pushed out the entrance hole while the parents were frequently entering and exiting while feeding their young. The martins have a way of creating their nests so this doesn't happen but I am not able to recreate this, hence, the 3" nest wall. I placed this mini wall where the original metal dividing wall was so there should be plenty of room for them to enter & exit.
As my Martins were arriving home, tragedy struck. During the night, a few gourds fell to the ground during moderate to high winds. This has happened before, ironically only in the early, but somehow I was able to correct the problem before it became too much of a problem. This time around, one of the gourds that fell had a pair of Martins sleeping in it!! By a pure miracle of God, both Martins were not harmed and flew away once freed. Not only did I inadvertently potentially harm a Martin pair, I lost two of my best gourds in the fall. To remedy this, I changed the above. I haven't lost a gourd since.
Yep, the Trio door were switched over to Sinatra WDC entrances too. I liked the look of them so much for the T-14 that I wanted them on all my housing. The crescents worked fine and I am leaving my porched crescent gourds as is. A WDC entrance is basically a modified Excluder entrance. Some landlords, who were reporting their martins struggling to enter a Crescent, are reporting great success with these entrances with little or no struggle at all.
I have to say, after watching my own Martins navigate through the entrances with amazing ease, these are the only SREH's I want to use in the future and I highly recommend them. I made these modifications to the Trio doors pretty close to how I modified the Goliad doors. The only difference is I used Tin Snips to enlarge the round hole doors. I had actually done these doors first and THEN bought the Dremel. =)
Last year, the two year old Goliad pole bent. The new owners of Lonestar sent me a new improved pole at no cost to me! How is that for standing behind their product. =) The new pole is noticeably stronger and more secure. I am confident the same problem will not repeat itself with the new & improved pole. Along with the new pole, as stated above, the Goliad was also converted over to WDC entrances. I did this by cutting out the aluminum crescent doors with a Dremel saw making a 2 1/2" high by 3" wide square hole, using the bottom of the crescent as the base. After sanding off any sharp edges I attached the new doors with small self drilling screws in each of the 4 corners. Then I coated, where the entrance plate meets the cut metal on the inside, with a weatherproof strong clear glue, so the martins won't potentially get hurt by the sharp edges. Viola! I also trimmed about a 1/4" off the nest insert trays, as the stuck out just a hair too much for my liking.
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               Below are a few small video clips of my Martins......
*You must have a updated media player installed on
your computer to view these video clips. *
I have made a video of my first returning ASY male Martin, Patch, entering a interior/exterior porched crescent gourd for the first time. Amazingly, he did this in under 4 minutes, after only being home no more than 10 minutes.
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This video clip is of Patch's "6" 2003 fledglings from the Mini Trio Castle housing. The babies fledged their gourd and landed in a near by tree roughly 100' away, where they then get acclimated to their new surroundings... the world! You can see two or three fledglings in this clip. This film clip is about 1 minute 15 seconds long and has sound.
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This video clip is of my Martins and their fledglings all together, flying on and around the Mini Trio Castle with attached gourd rack. This film clip is about 1 minute 53 seconds long and has sound.
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