More purple martinsHi Kevin and Tweets:
Wow, good work, with the tide coming in and all! I wonder where these new martins are coming from at this late date in the year? Don't these birds leave in summer to migrate south?
Yours, Carol Schulz
DesMoines
linusq at att.net

----- Original Message -----
From: Li, Kevin
To: 'tweeters at u.washington.edu'
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 5:32 PM
Subject: More purple martins


Today I was going to visit several purple martin sites around town, but when I realized that the tide was out I figured I should first take the opportunity to visit the Shilshole Bay site. With the minus tide I could walk out to the pilings. The tide was well out when I got there around 2:30pm, but I could tell from a distance that something was up. Martins were in a flurry of activity, and about 15 martins would be in the air simultaneously. I could see martins hanging on various nest box and gourd entrances, with three or four sometimes fluttering around one cavity.

It seems that maybe a new wave of martins has arrived, and they're checking out the existing colony. House sparrows have taken several cavities despite my numerous evictions, and I saw several battles between the species. I got the impresion that addional cavities might be needed, so I rushed home and got the ladder and the drill and a bunch of gourds. By about 3:30 the water was at the base of the pilings, but being a warm sunny day it didn't matter if I got wet. I put up four new gourds and pulled two house sparrow nests. As I walked away with my ladder I stopped and looked back, and saw four martins fluttering around one of the new gourds. One was hanging on the entrance. I would guess that at times there were 15-20 martins in the air around me.

The site is south of Shilshole Marina, at a public access beach west of West Marine, the Ballard Elks Club, and Gordo's.

Kevin Li
kdli at msn.com
Ballard, USA
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