[birdky] INFO: Historical Account of Purple Martins
- From: <sialia67@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 1 Mar 2014 20:36:17 -0600
J. Warren Jacobs wrote about his experience hosting purple martins in the late
1890s and early 1900s in his book, Gleanings from Nature. His account of
purple martins begins on page 48 in the link below. Not much has changed in
114 years as far as the challenges of managing martins.
He starts out on page 52 describing how martin numbers plummeted as house
sparrows took over the martin houses. He killed upwards of 300 sparrows a
summer to protect his martins. I trapped 127 house sparrows out of my yard
last summer 2013.
On page 72, he described how the martins feasted on periodical cicadas in 1897.
I was able to enjoy the same experience with my martins 111 years later in
2008 when the 17-year bugs emerged in east Ky.
His other big challenge was preventing groups of boys from shooting his martins
and every other feathered critter around the countryside. I had to chase one
of the neighbor boys out of the yard 3 times one summer as he was plinking at
my martins. Some of my gourds still have visible indentations from the pellets
and BBs.
http://essexpurplemartins.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Gleanings-from-Nature.pdf
Scott Freidhof
Rowan County
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