Subject: Seattle purple martins
Date: Aug 12 22:42:56 2003
From: Li, Kevin - Kevin.Li at METROKC.GOV


Many of my recent evenings have been spent monitoring the purple martins at
the south end of Elliott Bay, and I've been surprised at how long they've
been roosting in their 6 nests following fledging. I noticed most had
fledged about August first, and a seventh nest has yet to fledge. About 730
pm I can anticipate seeing martins trickle in from up high, their calls
giving their presence away well before I can see them. About 25 or 30 of
them come swirling down in a raucous bunch, and they break up into what I
assume are the various broods. The adults may perch above various gourds or
boxes while the young ones clumsily attempt to land or to enter the
cavities. They abruptly come and go, sometimes combining into one scattered
group of 25, other times breaking down into just 5 or 6 or fewer. A passing
gull or a heron may give them impetus to combine efforts in a rowdy chase.
Tonight there was a rather high tide and the water level was just about 5 or
6 feet below the gourds and I was surprised to see a young double crested
cormorant swim directly under the nests for several minutes, slowly passing
the nests many times; it looked up at the various martins, and seemed
hopeful that a fledgling would hit the water. After a few minutes of this
cruising the martins finally had enough of this cormorant, and they chased
it into the air to the west. Several years ago I saw a grat blue heron eat a
recently fledged purple martin, and weeks ago I saw a picture from Lanny
Carpenter of a crow pulling an adult martin from a nest box near Olympia.

By about 830 the martins more or less settled in, quieting down
considerably; I could see faces in 7 cavities as I left at 9 pm for a late
Ballard dinner.

A few nights ago I watched the Shilshole martins around sunset and activity
was much more subdued than Elliott Bay, but about 5 nests still had
nestlings that were being fed.

It was a good evening.

Kevin Li
Ballard, USA
kdli at msn.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/pipermail/tweeters/attachments/20030812/c4493c4c/attachment.htm