Featured photo: This the time of year when purple martins visit neighborhood nesting boxes. (Courtesy photo)
When I was a kid growing up in the country, this was the time of year when our family kept our eyes on the skies listening and watching for the arrival of our annual visitors, that being purple martins.
We always had a bird box set up on a pole in the yard and without fail, there was an air of excitement when we heard the first lilting twitter high in the air, excitement that escalated when a martin landed on our box. It was a pleasure to keep tabs on the pair of martins that found our little box a good place to raise their young and to watch them feed the little ones amid all the flutter and twitter.
That all ended for me after I grew up and left home because in spite of my best efforts to install boxes for martins, I could never attract any, so I had to jealously enjoy those my neighbors had that settled into their living quarters.
Choudrant’s Dick and Trish Albritton, are blessed every year with bird houses full of nesting purple martins. I got a message this week from Trish letting me know that they got a Valentine’s Day surprise when the first purple martin scout showed up on their boxes on February 14.
I visited with the Albritton’s last year after martins had moved into their houses and Dick shared some information about how he and Trish attract martins. “I have 50-60 boxes plus gourds up in our yard and we have over 50 martins here now” he said. “My boxes formerly had round entrance holes that martins used but starlings did too, and that was a problem. My boxes
now have smaller rectangle holes martins have no trouble entering; yet they’re too small for starlings.”
An on-line site about these birds described them this way… “Renowned for their chattering songs, aerial acrobatics, insect eating habits and tolerance of humans they stand as one of America’s most cherished songbirds.”
There are other characteristics of purple martins that Albritton has observed. “Fledglings will return to the spot, often to the same cubicle this spring where they were hatched last year. Also,” he added, “purple martins like to be close to humans so it’s important that their houses need to be 60-100 feet from where people live. There needs to be a water source such as a pond and power lines for perching nearby. They start arriving by late February and begin leaving around mid-July.”
Part of the Albritton’s success with attracting purple martins involves quite a bit of work. “I will lower the boxes before birds begin arriving to clean them out, place a handful of straw in each cubicle before raising the boxes.”
I have been seeing reports through Facebook of homeowners reporting the arrival of these birds. They started showing up in places earlier like Florida and later along the Gulf coast but are now starting to move on north to give folks in our part of the country the pleasure of watching them for the spring and summer.
Although my success at attracting them has been zero, I can enjoy getting to hear their music high above and seeing them on neighbor’s boxes. I might find excuses to visit Dick and Trish as I can assure you, their boxes and the surrounding skies will be filled with plenty of flutter and twitter.