Subject: Ballard/Shilshole Purple Martins Sunday AM.
Date: Aug 8 18:15:10 2004
From: Ruth Taylor - rutht at seanet.com


Hi All:

I spent almost an hour this morning at the Shilshole Purple Martin site,
starting at roughly 0800.
It's well worth visiting before all the young fledge - lots of activity and
good comparisons of plumages. Morning is best at this site, because the sun
is behind you.

There were martins everywhere. Adults were hunting, feeding perched young or
young in gourds, and perching atop gourds and pilings. The morning sun
enhanced the deep purple-blue of the adult males' plumage and painted a
faint shimmer on the very fresh feathers of the recent fledglings. Juveniles
perched on pilings and wires, gaping and fluttering wings when an adult
approached, leaned partially out of the openings of gourds, or were visible
only as heads at the gourd openings. Several gourds had three heads of
juveniles tightly packed together in the openings - comical sights.

The best show was when a pair of adult Glaucous-winged Gulls landed atop two
adjacent pilings in the midst of the colony. Every swallow that could fly
abruptly ascended in a swirling mass that spread and diffused above the
beach, leaving only the unfledged youngsters swinging in the north wind in
their gourd homes. The gulls didn't stay long, and the martins gradually
returned to business as usual.

Also of note were at least two adult Caspian Terns cruising the area. I
heard a juvenile close by, but I couldn't locate it visually. I used to
spend a lot of time at Willapa Bay, where they're ubiquitous in late summer,
so I'm comfortable with the identification and curious about whether anyone
has seen or heard juveniles around Elliott Bay recently.

Ruth Taylor
Seattle/Ballard
rutht at seanet.com