Educate Yourself About the Purple Martin and its Habitats
Purple Martin
The Purple Martin has a short bill, long head, dark head and body, and a long pointed tail.
Its length is 7-8in (18-20cm) Its wingspan is 18in (45cm) Its voice is a throaty, rich “tchew-wew” or “pew-pew”, the gurgling song ends in a succession of low, rich gutturals.
Their eggs are pure white, with usually 1 clutch consisting of 4-6 or (3-7) eggs. The female incubates for about 15-18 days, and fledging time is around 26-31 days. Both male and female feed their young. The female looks like the male, except for a lighter belly. The juveniles have the same light belly. The male juvenile has a deep blue- speckled throat.
The Purple Martin are not purple at all, but they are still elegant, beautiful birds in their glossy, deep blue, almost black coloring. You will find this bird nesting all across the United States but is very hard to have visit and nest in your lovely bird feeding garden, as they do not like new places of residents.
The Purple Martin will claim nesting houses in early January after arriving form wintering in Brazil, on the Gulf Coast, but there are some males that move north, and will settle in their northern edge ranges, in early April. If you are lucky enough you can watch these elegant members of the swallow family as they swoop, and soar across the sky, and listen to their song, one of the most cheerful sounds of spring.
The Purple Martin will mostly nest in artificial gourds, and boxes, but there are some Florida, and Pacific Coast Martins that still nest the old fashioned way, in dead trees, riddled with woodpecker’s cavities, and rock crevices. Martins are also colonial nesters, choosing sites where there are many good locations close together, but these locations are hard to find, and become frequent hunting grounds for predators.
Therefore Martin houses is an attractive choice to natural cavities, but such housing also attracts nesting competitors like the European Starlings, and House Sparrows witch will occupy these residents before the Martins come back from their winter migration.
There are Martin experts that has discovered that when nesting Martins are given a choice, they prefer gourd-shaped hosing over the classic multiple-compartment houses. The House Sparrow and the European Starlings tend to prefer houses witch will minimize the completion between the two species.
Native Americans like the Chickasaws and the Choctaws had knowledge about the fearlessness of the Martins to drive away predators like hawks, trespassing into the Indian tribes poultry flocks. So, to keep the Martins around, the Indians would build gourds, and hang them from stout young trees, witch they had removed all the upper branches from, and the short stubs would now become perfect multi-nesting spots. If there where no available trees around, they would build crossbars, and mount them atop a post.
They have a big appetite for flying insects, and will catch insects almost entirely on the wing, such as mosquitoes, dragonflies, moths, butterflies, and flies witch they feed to their young ones as well. They also look for ground-dwelling insects like weevils, and cucumber beetles, darting down to snatch them from the ground. These birds even drink while flying, skimming the surface of streams, and ponds with an open beak.
A few days of cold weather and long rain periods, can be devastating for the Purple Martin population as the insect supply will decline. Starvation can quickly set in, and the cold weather can get them ill. This would be a great time to supply them with mealworms offered on a tray on your lawn.
Both parents build the nest, using mud, twigs, leaves, grassand bits of bark as materials, and the female will do all of the incubation, but the male will guard the nest when the female is out feeding. After the rearing is done and they leave their housing in July or August, they will gather in enormous groups for pre-migratory roosts in preparation for their long southward flight. These large sleeping roosts can be as “small” as 25.000, and up to 1.000.000 birds. Impressive!!!
You can buy a simple aluminum house for around $100, but for your own enjoyment there are incredible architectural master pieces witch will for sure become a conversation piece in your lovely bird feeding garden. You can also build one of our own, if you so choose witch are very easy to make by using bottle gourd.
To find out more about making Martin gourd housing, go to our section on HOMEMADE GOURD BIRDHOUSES.
