The Purple Martins are Back~!

Tracing the evolution of bird and human behavior

Ten martins were in residence Friday morning, the day after I put up the gourd rack. Seven males, all at least three years old, and three females. The rivalry to pick the “Best Nest” is well under way.

The younger males and the rest of the females will fly back from Brazil over the next month. The first eggs won’t be laid until the last week or so of May, depending on the weather, though my records aren’t very good on the exact dates when laying begins. I usually start doing weekly nest checks on Memorial Day, unless I see sparrows or starlings moving in earlier.

Only the Males (above) who are at least three years old are all purple. They’re called “ASY” males, for After Second Year.

The younger males (under the age of three) and the ASY females are a bit harder to distinguish. There aren’t any young males here yet to show you, but here you can see the difference between the ASY males and ASY females:

The ASY female, right, has light underbelly feathers with brown spots.

Here’s a helpful guide from the Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA):

See how the female underparts on the right are light brown? If this were a second year male the darker feathers would be purple, like the ASY Male on the left.

Here’s the rest of the chart, for completeness:

Here’s the link to Tattletails: How to tell the Age and Sex of Purple Martins on the PMCA website.

The Migration Map illustrates just how far these birds fly twice a year, from the Orange to the Blue and back.

Orange: Breeding

Yellow: Migration

Blue: Overwintering (non-breeding)

Above: Geographical distribution of Purple martin. Credit: CreativeCommons

You can see that most of the breeding range is east of the Rocky Mountains. In the eastern part of their range the Purple Martins have transitioned to a complete reliance on human-provided nesting cavities.

Purple Martins are secondary cavities nesters. They do not create the cavities in which they nest. Originally the martins nested in cavities created by other animals in trees, or in natural cavities in cliffs or rock formation.

But at some point thousands of years ago Native Americans began to provide housing in the form of hollow gourds.

Credit: PMCA

The success of those early martin landlords encouraged a modification of behavior, in both the birds and people. Eventually this led to a complete shift in behavior east of the Rockies. The martins are completely reliant upon human-provided housing.

West of the Rockies martins still nest in abandoned woodpecker holes in trees and saguaro cacti as well as in landlord provided housing. But east of the mountains the Martins are totally reliant on people.

Do you think that someday people will abandon the martins? That has been the trend on the local lakes. There used to be dozens of martins landlords scattered around the lake, but every year there seem to be fewer and fewer.

On the other hand, the joy of hosting these incredible birds makes some of us totally devoted to providing housing for this beautiful species.

One place you can always see martin housing is on the Amish farms in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indian and Michigan. This gives me hope for their survival.

I like to imagine the transition to landlord-provided housing among the Eastern Woodland Tribes. Perhaps the first nesting was by accident, in gourds left to dry in trees. Dried gourds were used for eating and cooking. An enterprising martin expanded a crack or hole in an old gourd hung up to dry and moved in.

What a coup for that family! They started saving their old gourds and hanging them up for their friends the martins.

Soon the whole tribe had martins, and no doubt eventually other tribes copied the practice.

The happiness and pride that we feel today from caring for these beautiful birds are the same joyful feelings that early Native Americans experienced each year as the birds returned from the south.

Today many people have transitioned to plastic gourds. They are durable and don’t require much maintenance. But you can see mine are a bit worn.

Some of the gourds are over 20 years old. My old friend Bennie Gray used to buy them for me down in Mississippi. If you take care of them they really last. First I soak them in a copper sulfate solution, then dry them out, cut the holes, and paint them.

In the Fall it’s a simple matter to clean out the gourds and sprinkle some sulfur dust inside to kill off any mites. About ten years ago I started adding clean out holes to the gourds, which make it a bit easier to get access inside. But a blunt stick, like those used to stir paint, work fine even with a single hole access.

If you’re interested in becoming a Purple Martin landlord and need some help drop me a line.

Not every place is conducive to a nesting spot. Gourds need to be placed in open areas, away from overhanging tree limbs where owls or hawks can perch. Owls and snakes are probably their biggest enemies. The end of a dock out over the water is truly ideal, although one year a huge rat snake climbed up the pole and wiped out almost the entire colony.

We haven’t seen any snakes for many years, although we have had owl attacks, usually in July when the young are about ready to start flying.

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Above: Pic of Duchess’ nest today!

A quick update: Duchess the Mallard was no where to be seen yesterday. She had covered up the eggs, 11 at last count, and foraged with Duke all day. There wasn’t an egg in sight so I decided not to disturb the nest. She returned at dusk and has been sitting on the eggs all night. [New subscribers see A visit to the Heron Rookery which has the background about Duchess and Duke the mallards.]

It takes 3-4 weeks for the eggs to hatch once she starts to lay on them, so hopefully I will have some baby duck pics by the time we get back.

We’re packing for Hawaii now, so stay tuned for a change of scenery as we travel to the middle of the Pacific. I hope to have some good photos of the Nene, Hawaii’s state bird and one of the worlds’ rarest geese, and learn more about the early Hawaiian culture. Plus May 1 is Lei Day! Can’t wait to share.

Thanks for traveling along~! So glad you’re here!