Becoming a Purple Martin landlord

Across the Midlands, purple martin gourds and apartments are telescoping skyward.

Scouts, the earliest and elder martins returning from wintering grounds in Brazil, have already been sited in Prosperity and Pomaria. The youth or sub- adults stay in Brazil longer but will migrate north four to six weeks after the scouts. The sub- adults will look for their first nesting sites.

Landlords mount gourds or multiple compartment houses on poles each spring. Purple martins, Progne subis, the largest members of the swallow family in North America, are dependent upon human supplied houses for nesting.

Houses should be placed in the center of the most open area available on a lot. The farther housing is from trees the better. Houses and gourds painted white seem to attract martins best, white also reflects sun to keep nestlings cool.

Unlike the current real estate market for humans, the housing market for birds is vigorous, competitive, and active. Martins compete with nonnative starlings and house sparrows and even such natives as bluebirds, wrens, tree swallows, and flycatchers for suitable nesting locations.

Columbia gardener Audrey Howell mounts purple martin gourds overlooking an open area in her yard. Housing units that telescope up and down easily allow landlords to evict competitors or check the safety of eggs and nestlings. Nest checks by humans do not cause martins to abandon their brood or colony. Weekly nest checks allow the landlord to keep a census on the colony, inspect the nest for parasites, and thwart predator problems from snakes, raccoons, squirrels, owls, hawks, and crows.

When a nesting site is selected, martins return yearly to the same place. The pair bonding is monogamous. Both male and female build the nest of mud, grass, and twigs. The female lays two to seven white eggs at a rate of one per day. Females incubate eggs for 15 days. Both parents feed the nestlings four to five weeks until they fledge.

Farmers and gardeners appreciate purple martins for their control of insects. These aerial insectivores consume great quantities of flying insects including dragonflies, houseflies, Japanese beetles, June bugs, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, cicadas, bees, wasps, and mayflies. However, they do not consume large amounts of mosquitoes since they feed high in the sky, whereas mosquitoes are closer to the ground.

Martins obtain water on the wing by swooping down to scoop up liquid from a pond or lake. Adverse weather in spring or summer, which threatens the insect supply can cause starvation if without food for three or more days.

Watchful landlords keep crickets and mealworms on reserve to sustain the colony in emergency situations such as what occurred last April along the east coast. Martin rescue parties were flinging crickets, mealworms, and even morsels of hard- boiled eggs into the air for hungry martins. Reports of emergency feeding can be read at www.-purplemartin.org and www.purplemartins.com.

Purple martins pay their landlords in song. Male martins sing dawnsongs, a syncopated series of chirps, in predawn hours of spring while flying over the colony or perched nearby. Purple martins generally reside for a period of 70 days. The Purple Martin Festival will be held in St.Matthews April 19, 2008.