Is the Oldest Birdhouse Still the Best?

Natural gourds were the first "bird houses." Today, gourds still make great homes for martins.  Gourds provide larger, deeper nest cavities. They are attractive to martins and have have better occupancy rates. They are predator-resistant; reduce premature fledgling; and overcome a weakness of most housing designs, i.e., shared porches.

A cluster of gourds gives each pair of martins more privacy, so they spend less time defending their territory. The lack of a porch is an advantage with  lower fledgling fallout. Common porches promote male porch domination, which lowers occupancy rates, and permits porch wandering by nestlings, which can causes a higher mortality.