This is my site. I started it about 1996 with the old Trio house and two smaller gourd racks you see on the left in the back of the picture. I had plenty of visitors, but for some reason, the females would never stay. About 2 years later, I built the two racks in the foreground. Still, plenty of visitors, but the females wouldn't stay. In 2003, I started offering brown gourds, and got many more visitors. Finally, in 2004, I had one pair that nested. After the season was over in 2004, I added the T-14 house and the gourd rack just beyond it.

It has been proven that white gourds and housing is cooler, which is a benefit to Purple Martins when it very hot in the summer. My brown gourds have two 3/4" PVC elbows in the top and extra drainage holes in the bottom. All this is to increase air flow and make the brown gourds a little cooler. Once my colony is established and I am sure of site fidelity, I will be painting all my gourds white. The extra cooling measures have helped, as I have done temperature tests over the last two years, and noticed that the brown gourds are running 1.5 to 2 degrees higher temperatures than the white ones.