Chuck, why all the concern about starlings and using SREHs? Will they not nest along with the martins?
Plain and simpleNO! Ive been keeping purple martins since the mid 1980s. Very early on, I also thought about just letting the starlings nest along with my martins. Although I had been warned not to, being a person that doesnt kill something just for the sake of killing it, I decided to let them nest. Even though I personally witnessed a little quarreling between the martins and starlings, I didnt see any problem with it. I just thought it was normal between bird species. Then, one day I was doing my nest checks and I came across a beautiful black adult male, dead in his nest. As I investigated further, I found that his eyes were pecked out and the top of his head had been pecked away. In the very next nest, I found 2 eggs that had been broken and 2 freshly hatched babies that had been pecked to death. I immediately knew what had happened and I was sick…probably from being so mad at myself for not listening to someone that had warned me time and again about the starlings and their des
