Often you hear them before you see them. To me, Purple Martins are the blues singers of the swallows. They vocalize in loud, gravelly chirps combined with throaty warbling as they soar overhead like miniature purple-black jets in search of insects. When they are not in flight, you can find them perched near their waterfront homes. It is always special to encounter them, because they used to be scarce.
In 1988, only one nesting pair existed In Seattle. Between 1966 and 2019, the worldwide Purple Martin population declined by 25%.
Why? A big reason was predation and nest displacement by European Starlings and House Sparrows. These two aggressive species forcefully evicted Purple Martins from their nesting cavities or houses, often killing them in the process. Logging, land development and urbanization also took a toll on nesting trees. Many Martins in the wild seeking tree cavities for their nests were denied. Pesticides were not helpful either since they kill insects, which are Martin food. Finally, there are weather events that continue to cause Martin fatalities. Cold snaps are particularly hard on them, because like pesticides, freezing weather can kill insects. When insects are unavailable for more than three consecutive days, Martins can starve.
Here is the good news: the current population of Purple Martins stands at 9
million, making them a species of “Least Concern.” In Washington State, at the NW edge of the Martin’s range, their population is estimated to be 600 breeding pairs – up from just a few pairs in the 1980s. This represents a major recovery, a Martin revival if you will, and people had a lot to do with it.
Purple Martins are the largest member of the swallow family. They breed east of the Rockies, reaching north into central Alberta and Manitoba, into Canada’s Maritime provinces, and west along the Pacific Coast of the United States, barely touching into SW British Columbia.
Purple Martins gather in large flocks to stage in the late summer prior to making their journey to South America, where they spend the winter. Mauricetown, New Jersey claims to have the largest Purple Martin staging area. Other major staging areas include: Houston, Texas; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Willmar, Minnesota.
Purple Martins are found near water. As insectivores, this makes sense. Areas with nesting structures in parks, natural areas or even in marinas tend to concentrate them in colonies.
Improved martin nest boxes helped their revival. Here in Seattle, Kevin Li, an environmental engineer, built gourd nesting homes decades ago, based upon the Native American gourd houses that attracted nesting Purple Martins to their villages to control insects. Li climbed ladders to inspect his nesting boxes and to remove intruders, such as House Sparrows and European Starling.
Certain design features in nesting gourds help attract Purple Martins:
• Utilizing a dried hard-shell gourd
• Sanding and painting it white to keep it cool in summer
• Drilling a 2 &1/8” hole -too small for Starling
• Having a front porch to allow Martins to squeeze into the small hole
• Hanging the gourd/nest box so it is free swinging – undesirable to sparrows and starlings
• Setting it up above water – also undesirable to sparrows and starlings
Li is credited with bringing back Purple Martins in Seattle by building, placing his nests all around the city’s many coastal waterways and maintaining them. From a low of one nesting pair in 1988, there are now dozens of Purple Martins in the city at such locations as Union Bay Natural Area, Jack Block Park and Shilshole Bay Marina. Li also set up nest boxes in areas outside of Seattle.
Tragically, Kevin Li died at the age of 50 in a scuba diving accident. His legacy lives on with the thriving Purple Martin Population in the area that he helped restore from the brink of extirpation. It also lives on in the form of the many other people and organizations in Washington State and all across the country who doing similar work on behalf of Purple Martins.
Li’s gourd design has caught on and can be seen in many locations around Western Washington. Other effective designs have caught on too. You can see Purple Martin “housing developments” in places like Marymoor Park in Redmond, the Anacortes Park just east of the ferry landing, Kah Tai Wetlands in Port Townsend, Three Crabs Estuary near Sequim, Lagoon Point and Crockett Lake on Whidbey Island, just to name a few. Numerous individuals and Audubon Societies have teamed up to build and maintain Purple Martin houses.
We could have let this beautiful, charismatic insect-controlling species fall through the cracks. Instead, based on science and compassion for a fellow species on earth, people brought them back. We revived the Purple Martins, just as we did Bald Eagle, Osprey, Peregrine Falcon, Brown and American White Pelicans and many other species. When people steward the earth and its species, we are acting responsibly. Reviving the earth’s biological diversity is a noble task.
