Dennis Smith and his newly made T-14

[Terry Suchma]

Dear Landlords,

This season, we have been graced by a thoughtful and magnanimous landlord from the Libertyville, IL area, Dennis. We all know him as Dennis from Nothern Illinois.

For the last few months, Dennis has been making a T-14 house and when completed, it was donated to the Lake County Forest Preserve. As you will note from the fotos below, Dennis made the T-14 his own with individual doors, a special paint job using Kiltz sealer and stain and Excluder type entrance holes. The beauty was even decorated with a silhouette of a dragonfly above the top compartment on each of the 4 vertical tiers of units.

Dennis is someone we should know and appreciate the good he is doing for Purple Martins in his area of the country.

We salute you, Dennis!

Here are two fotos of the new T-14 house that Dennis made and donated to the Lake County Forest Preserve in Nippersink, IL:



Dennis' T-14 #1

Dennis' T-14 #2

Terry

[Robert Mohler]

Dennis,

Those are great looking houses that any family of Martins would love to raise their young. Mighty fine work there, yes sir indeed.

Robert Mohler

Fort Worth, TX

[Dennis/N.Illinois]

Thank you Sir. I hope they get a lot of use.

[Dennis/N.Illinois]

The house went up last Sunday. No birds yet. Here's a picture

s

[John Pearson]

That picture looks great. And the surrounding habitat looks made for Martins. Good luck

[Dennis/N.Illinois]

Thank you. The Lake County Forest Preserve in Illinois is doing a great job out here.

[John Pearson]

Have any luck yet? I was just looking at the picture of your house again and noticed SREH entrances and was wondering if you had any round holes. Sometimes people offer round holes to get the colony started and then switch to the starling resistant. I've read on this conference that some birds do not know how to negotiate the smaller entrances and don't try at first. Just a thought to increase the odds of getting birds. Others may disagree with me.

[Dennis/N.Illinois]

No luck yet but it's still early. There are only SREH's on the house for 2 reasons. 1) All the other martin houses in the Preserves are sreh's so I figure that if we get any of the martins from last year they will be familiar with them.

2) Because its not a backyard house and will only be checked once or twice a week I believe this will be the best way to keep Starlings from taking over.

My house in my back yard has a combination of different SREH'S and round holes.

[Dennis/N.Illinois]

Update. 5 eggs in the nest that should hatch any day. here's a few pics.






Sorry about the fuzzy picture of the female.

[John Pearson]

How did your five ever turn out? Did the eggs hatch?

John