Two owls that heavily prey on martins are the Barred and the Great-horned owls. For years, I was plagued with attacks by Barred owls until I converted all my Trio housing to double or triple-room compartments. After the Barred owl(s) left, a Great-horned came to take their place. This highly intelligent killer works a whole different game. Just after dark, he makes a sweep of all the houses on the lake. If any martins are still on balconies or perches, they are nabbed. Then, he perches from a distance (about 20-50 feet) and waits for the pre-dawn exodus of males when “dawnsinging season” starts. While most older males have learned to exit their compartments like “bats out of hell,” some of the younger martins don’t appreciate the reason for this behavior. Some of these youngsters hop out of their compartments and pause for a minute, yawn and stretch before embarking. That’s all the time the Great-horned needs to launch from his perch, make two or three strong flaps of his mighty wings, glide along the ground until nearly under the housing, he flairs up, grabs the martin and flies off to his favorite eating perch high up in a willow tree on the other side of the lake. He eats about half of the martin and heads off to the woods to deliver the other half to his brooding mate.

This whole process is done in utter and complete silence. The housing is never touched and martins have no idea when an attack occurs. This is why many martins do not learn the reason behind the quick exits. My strategy with the Decoys by Sandy, is to present false perching martins that will first, make noise when the owl attacks the decoys attached to the housing, and secondly, frustrate him with his failed attacks ultimately forcing him to seek alternative hunting areas or prey. So far, so good. I plan on mounting four more of these decoys and varying their location daily to further confuse him. Hope it works – if so, decoys will be a proven martin-saver.