[va-richmond-general] neat article on Purple Martins - go to link for photos
- From: "Kathy" <k-kreutzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:57:55 -0400
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/garden/12purple.html?hpw
August 11, 2010
Birdhouses Designed for Repeat Visitors
By KATE MURPHY
AFTER a long day at work, Chuck Abare, 63, a computer designer, likes to sit
on the porch of his two-story ranch house on the outskirts of Huntsville,
Ala., drink a gin and tonic, and watch the antics of the purple martins
winging around his backyard.
Glossy aerial acrobats with forked tails, purple martins are a type of
swallow, and the only species of bird entirely dependent on humans for
housing. Every spring, Mr. Abare said, they show up to nest in the bulbous
chandelier-like birdhouses he made several years ago out of plywood and
hollowed-out gourds, and mounted on 12-foot poles.
"Purple martins are addicting," said Mr. Abare, who built two standard
birdhouses for them as well, to accommodate a total of 104 nests. "When the
birds start to fledge, I'll have maybe 300 at a time chitchatting and flying
around. It gets pretty noisy, but I never get tired of them."
Sales figures from companies that make housing for purple martins, like S&K
Manufacturing in Missouri, suggest that Mr. Abare is not alone in his
enthusiasm. The company, one of the largest suppliers of martin housing,
reports that sales of houses and gourds have increased annually by nearly 40
percent for the last five years.
The Purple Martin Conservation Association, a nonprofit organization based
in Erie, Pa., has seen evidence of growing interest as well, with a big
upswing in participation in its online forums since its Web site was
introduced in 2003. (The first year, the site had 30 active users; today,
3,000 people post questions and comments on 15,000 topics related to
attracting and caring for purple martins.) And a number of rival
organizations, like the Purple Martin Society of North America and the
Purple Martin Preservation Alliance, have emerged, as have countless blogs
and videos on YouTube devoted to purple martins.
This spike in interest coincides with the increased popularity of
bird-watching in general - the number of bird-watchers in the United States
is now estimated to be somewhere between 48 million and 69 million,
according to sources ranging from the United States Fish and Wildlife
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/f/fish_an
d_wildlife_service/index.html?inline=nyt-org> Service to the journal
Environmental Conservation.
Those who act as purple martin "landlords," however, are often far more than
mere observers. Many interact with their tenants, inspecting nests and
tending to baby birds. Some monitor the birds with video or "nest cams" and
intervene to protect them if necessary.
David Bonter, an ornithologist at Cornell University
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/cornell
_university/index.html?inline=nyt-org> in Ithaca, N.Y., said this is one
reason the species, which had been dwindling in number, has seen a comeback
in recent years.
"Purple martins, like all aerial insectivore populations, have not been
doing well, partly due to pesticides poisoning their food supply, so it's
good that more people are getting involved in helping them," Dr. Bonter
said.
Their dependence on humans began centuries ago, according to the Audubon
Society
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/a/audubon
_society/index.html?inline=nyt-org> , when American Indians put out hollowed
gourds for them, probably because the birds are voracious insectivores that
provided pest control and also chased off vultures picking at drying meat
and hides.
Purple martins winter in the Amazon basin in South America and return to
nest in North America from late February through August. They are found
mostly in the Eastern half of the United States, but also in parts of
Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, California, Oregon and Washington. This
time of year, they can be seen teaching their fledglings how to catch bugs
in midair and fattening up for their journey south.
MARTINS like to nest up high, where they are safe from predators like snakes
and raccoons, and can spy and swoop down on insects. The best place to put
their housing is in a clearing, 10 to 15 feet off the ground, far enough
from trees or shrubs so they have an unimpeded flyway.
Mr. Abare put a nest cam in one of his gourds so he can watch the eggs hatch
and chart the nestlings' progress. Every four or five days, he inspects the
nests in person, using ropes and pulleys to lower the gourd racks and
birdhouses to the ground like flags on a flagpole.
The various rooms of the birdhouses are numbered, as are the gourds. Mr.
Abare opens the hatches on each compartment, calling out status reports to
his wife, Betty, 63, who jots them down in a notebook. He also takes
pictures, which he posts on his Web site, chuckspurplemartinpage.com.
Like Mr. Abare, Larry Melcher, 47, a pipe fitter, keeps meticulous records
of the goings-on inside the 58 purple martin nesting cavities in the
birdhouse and two gourd racks he keeps on 10-foot poles behind his tidy
brick house outside Louisville, Ky. When a baby falls out of a nest, he can
figure out where it belongs from his spreadsheets. He also cleans and
replaces nesting material in compartments that have become infested with
blood-sucking mites, which can kill baby birds.
"Unlike other birds, martins don't care if you touch their babies," Mr.
Melcher said. "It's like they know you're there to help."
Friends and neighbors often attend his weekly nest checks, and more than
2,000 people have watched the video of him returning a baby martin to its
nest, which he posted
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7qhZfzfTlQ&feature=related> on YouTube.
As well as being up high, purple martins like to be within a few miles of
water, where there are plenty of bugs. Pat Lynch, 75, of Rochester said the
yard of her clapboard home on Lake Ontario would be unbearable during the
spring and summer were it not for her purple martin colony "scarfing up" all
the biting flies and insects. Ms. Lynch, a retired nurse, watches her
martins, which she calls "sky sweepers," from a swing on her patio. She also
has a nest cam that relays the action inside one of the compartments in her
two 12-room birdhouses. "It's better than TV," she said.
Some purple martin fans will go to great lengths for that entertainment.
When Tony Lau, 44, a frozen-dairy manager for a Target store near
Minneapolis, had trouble drawing martins to nest in his birdhouse four years
ago, he borrowed a neighbor's Bobcat mini bulldozer and dug a 75-foot-long
pond in his backyard.
"I was reading online about other people getting all these martins, and I
got sort of competitive about it," he said. "I decided to do everything I
could to get them here."
Mr. Lau now has 35 pairs of purple martins nesting in his birdhouse and
assorted gourds. He is hoping for 100 pairs next year, he said, because
martins that successfully reproduce at a site usually return and bring
friends.
But he knows he'll have to be on guard against what he and other purple
martin lovers consider the birds' archenemies: European starlings and
English house sparrows. These non-native birds, introduced to the United
States in the late 1800s, will evict martins from their nests, poke holes in
their eggs and kill nestlings. As Mr. Melcher put it, "It makes your blood
boil."
He and Mr. Abare kill English sparrows with an air rifle; Ms. Lynch traps
and drowns them. Specially sized half-moon openings in the birdhouses and
gourds usually keep out starlings, they said, so they don't have to
exterminate them.
"I hate to talk about killing birds," Mr. Melcher said. "But once I saw how
they steal nests and kill babies - it's like someone walking into your home
and telling you to get out, and murdering your kids."
Even so, others prefer just to shoo them away. Laura Joseph, 67, a retired
school administrator, said she manually removes sparrows from the 164
nesting cavities in the birdhouses and gourds she put on poles in the lot
next to her Greek revival home in Austin, Tex. "I asked neighbors to sign
up, and we have 34 volunteers who check the nests every day and take out the
sparrows," Ms. Joseph said. "We make their lives as uncomfortable as
possible, so they won't get established."
Frequent monitoring and intervention may increase the number of purple
martins that fledge, said Dr. Bonter of Cornell. Still, he added, "You don't
really have to do more than put up housing in an appropriate spot to have a
successful colony."
But for purple martin landlords like Kathy Freeze, 47, a computer systems
analyst with a 45-nest colony in Licking, Mo., near Springfield, interacting
with the birds is a large part of the appeal.
"You get a profound sense of accomplishment at the end of the season, when
all the young nestlings are fledging," she said. "And you know that you have
contributed to a great conservation effort."
Bird Housing, Specs and Sources
PURPLE MARTIN housing can look like anything from a Chinese pagoda to a
Ferris wheel with gondolas. But structures with multiple, spacious
compartments are the most effective at attracting the birds.
Whether you choose to go with houses or gourds, they should be painted white
to reflect the sun, which will keep nesting birds cooler; there should also
be half-moon-shaped openings (about 1 3/16 by 2 3/4 inches) to keep out
starlings. Most hands-on martin landlords say they prefer housing that can
be raised and lowered with a winch or a rope-and-pulley system, so they
don't have to climb a ladder to check on their tenants.
If you want to build the housing yourself, plans are available online. So is
ready-made housing.
Sources include the Purple Martin Conservation Association
(purplemartin.org), a nonprofit organization that offers information on
caring for the birds; S&K Manufacturing, a Missouri company specializing in
purple martin housing and accessories (skmfg.com); the Backyard Bird Company
(backyardbird.com), which sells a selection of housing for purple martins
and other birds; and Purple Martin Majesty (purplemartinmajesty.com), which
sells and ships gourd racks nationwide, and offers installation services in
the Houston area.
Other related posts:
- » [va-richmond-general] neat article on Purple Martins - go to link for photos - Kathy
