Purple Martin Landlord

Yesterday evening I visited the purple martin colony I’ve volunteered to serve as “landlord” for this summer. I’d originally called to volunteer to tend blue bird boxes, but those jobs were filled, so I signed on to the purple martin landlord job. I really don’t know much about purple martins, but just in the hour of introduction last night, I learned a lot. Martins winter in Brazil and return here in early- to mid-April. There were at least seven males who were flying around us as we checked the nests last night, the males returning a week or two before the females. Apparently martins – or at least eastern purple martins, what we have here – don’t nest in the wild. For hundreds, probably thousands of years, they have relied on humans to provide and maintain their nests, first the Native Americans who grew gourds for food, and hung the dried gourds on poles that the martins found convenient and safe nests, then the European settlers saw the symbiotic relationship between the natives and the martins and continued it. And we’re continuing it still. They like their nests to be on tall (15’-20’) poles, not near trees or buildings (distance from owls and hawks), and over a cleared ground (to spot snakes and raccoons). Curiously they prefer the modern activity of humans – my colony is in front of a motel on a four-lane strip, lined with businesses and a constant stream of traffic – because it further keeps predators away. It’s a convenient liaison between urban humans and migrating fowl.

The birds have no problem with their human hosts. They seem to enjoy it. Interacting is part of what I’m supposed to do as landlord, “talk to them.” For the next couple of weeks, before the females arrive, my main job will be to check into the nests (I have 24 to care for) every several days to clear out the grass and twigs from any sparrow or starling nests that have been started. (There is already a bedding of straw in the plastic gourd nests, placed by the area manager of the colonies.) As birds arrive, I’ll count the adult males and females, and the juvenile males and females. Then I’ll count the eggs as they’re laid – usually four or five a nest. And then monitor the hatching and growing (they hatch a couple of weeks after being laid and grow rapidly, becoming fledglings in about a month). I’ll also have to repair or delouse any damaged or contaminated nests. Sometimes that requires moving chicks to a new nest, but apparently the martins don’t have any problems with humans messing with the nests or chicks – they know that we’re caretakers of the colony. It’s an evolutionary relationship that’s fascinating, and one I’m looking forward to joining.