Purple Martins = mosquito control yes/no?

[cougar58]

Ok so I am in my 2nd year of hosting purple martins via man made houses (FYI they require mankind to host them).

They just returned today and are are moving back in and unpacking.

So I tell my friends & relatives I will have another year w/o a mosquito bite (my 10 acres adjoins a state forest with a huge pond, and is not sprayed by the county)

But someone told me it is a myth that PM’s dine on mosquitoes.

So which is it? Yes or No. And if no, how did this myth get so popular?

PS i really have not been bit by one in 2 yrs here, althou I get ticks if I get w/in 10 feet of the forest line. I built the first PM house when I first moved here 2 yrs ago, so I have no way to scientifically prove they do eat them.

[Ellen_Cherry]

Well, by Googling “purple martin diet” I found the answer to your question in 0.000002 seconds at purplemartin.org

11. Only bird species widely promoted by misinformation. A few overzealous martin house manufacturers have become extremely wealthy by fostering the myth that Purple Martins can eat 2000 mosquitoes per day. Their packaging and sales literature are plastered with this slogan. Such assertions, however, are blatantly untrue. Unfortunately, their propaganda campaigns have been so successful that most martin landlords embrace this falsehood with religious fervor. And because this fabrication has received such wide circulation for so many years, nearly every American knows the Purple Martin as the “mosquito-eating bird.” Such inaccurate claims are nothing more than sales hype designed to sell more martin houses. And it works - many people put up housing because they’ve been misled into thinking martins will control the mosquitoes in their neighborhood.

In reality, the martin eats few, if any mosquitoes. The numerous studies that have been conducted on martin diet reveal that it prefers larger, more energetically-rewarding, insects such as dragonflies, damselflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, katydids, mayflies, cicadas, beetles, flies, wasps, midges, and flying ants. In most of these diet studies, not even a single mosquito was found in the martins’ stomachs. But when they were found, they comprised less than 3% of the martin’s diet, by volume, and these studies involved the much larger, day-flying salt marsh mosquito, found only in a narrow band of habitat along coastal estuaries.

Such an absence of mosquitoes in the diet of martins is not surprising. The activity periods of martins and freshwater mosquitoes overlap for only about 10 minutes at dusk (freshwater mosquitoes do not fly high, in the open sun during the day, where martins feed. Instead, they stay low, in shady, humid areas and are totally inactive unless a mammal host happens by.) Out of the approximately 930 minutes available to martins each day for foraging, this 10-minute overlap period amounts to just 1% of their total foraging time. Even mosquito specialists (animals that eat nothing but mosquitoes) don’t control them despite devoting 100% of their foraging time to their pursuit. The bottom line: don’t put up a martin house with the hope of making your yard mosquito free, it won’t happen!

Many bat species, however, do eat mosquitoes. Do you have a lot bats on your property?

[cougar58]

yes I do have lots of bats. My friends & neighbors even claim I have bats in my belfry. How cool is that? They even camp out in the wood pile for my outdoor fire pit. I never made that connection.

well, at least the purple martins are nicer looking, plus they are out during sunlight (bats nocturnal), and they make a nice sound.

reckon I will hafta look up bat houses now.

thnx

[Crocodiles_And_Boulevards]

@Ellen_Cherry

Well, by Googling “purple martin diet” I found the answer to your question in 0.000002 seconds at purplemartin.org

Many bat species, however, do eat mosquitoes. Do you have a lot bats on your property?

Interesting, so by fostering purple martins, you may actually reduce the population of insects like dragonflies, which are real mosquito eaters.

[johnpost]

bat stuff

Bat Conservation International / Ending Bat Extinctions Worldwide

Bat Conservation International / Ending Bat Extinctions Worldwide

[Shadowfyre]

@Crocodiles_And_Boulevards

Interesting, so by fostering purple martins, you may actually reduce the population of insects like dragonflies, which are real mosquito eaters.

Hmm. I don’t think I have ever seen a single dragonfly in my yard. I do, however, have moths, grasshoppers, cicadas, beetles, flies, wasps, midges, and flying ants. A LOT of wasps. I HATE wasps. For that reason alone, I am now thinking of trying to attract some Purple Martins.

But I also have a lot of Box Elder bugs. I hope they eat those f$@&ers too.