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Holy bird poo!

Dargo

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
I tried for years to get purple martins to nest out in houses I placed on our lake dock without success. Last night what looks like a whole flock of them kept flying under my wrap-around porch. Today they have a huge glob of mud stuck directly above my front door on my house and are pooping all over my "welcome" mat.

What to do?? I am told these are fantastic birds to have around. They apparently fly to Brazil during their non-breeding season, and then to North America during breeding season. I've gotten a kick out of flocks of them following me when I've mowed for the last couple of decades but have never seen where they nest. They seem to know the sound of the diesel in my Grasshopper mowers because they don't appear when I start any other diesel engine.

Anyway, what now?! I'd really like for them to breed here (which I've read will cause them to return and breed each year) and be a natural mosquito killer. However, this huge mud glob and crapping directly on the welcome mat...well, that part isn't welcomed. Suggestions?
 
Take a look on the internet. Contact a bird watching group. Do you have a local vet that treats birds? What about a university or wild life sanctuary?
 
They have chosen their nesting spot and you just may be dead in the water. You and your guests will just have to use the back door.
 
They like your mower because you stir up the insects they love to eat as you mow the grass. I would check that you have properly built houses for them. There are specific guidelines for building them such as holes size and individual compartment size. Remove the mud one above your door and they will likely move somewhere else on the property. Are you sure they are not swallows?
 
Screw 2 pieces of wood together at a right angle and temporarily screw it to the trim under the nest.
Bird poo drip tray.
 
Well, we had a genuine ornithologist show up and he said, sure enough, we have a purple martin (he never used an "s" as in plural - are purple martin like "deer" where the plural is the same?) being built above our door. He seemed really excited because he said it is extremely rare for them to build nests east of the Rockies. Maybe we have dumb birds? He said once there are eggs laid, like the mother will lay an egg each day for up to a week or something, that they will really get down to eating bugs. He seemed horrified when I said I planned on spraying my yard with malathion as usual to get rid of the insects myself.

Oh well, so I can be a mini-treehugger, I'll just spray for the damn weeds since these wonderful birds crapping right out my front door refuse to rid my lawn of the strange bumper crop of clover we have this year. I HATE clover with a passion and kill it off each year. It seems to take two sprayings, like a week apart, to kill clover. A freaking hearty weed apparently.
 
Best be careful and check to make sure that whatever you use on the clover won't hurt the birds. It won't hurt too much to be a tree hugger for a month or so. Maybe they'll be the beginning of a colony that will nest east of the Rockies. :flowers:
 
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