Hi Tweets,

Tuesday was a good day on Whidbey Island this past week, watched an
adult male Purple Martin nestbuilding in one of the recently
installed nestboxes at Crockett Lake. Glad to see martins there
now , so close to the ferry terminal, since otherwise the place
has taken on a sad memory , after Kevin Li went diving there this
past January.

If the birds manage to pull it off at Crockett this year, that will
be the third [known] active breeding site on Whidbey, and the fourth
in Island county.

As the migration continues, some older first arriving martins have
now begun egg laying in Washington, found two nests with eggs on
Camano Island this past Saturday, one a six egg clutch in a nest
that was empty on June 11, so figuring one egg per day each
morning, and no days skipped, that clutch was initiated on June 12,
ten days later than the first egg there at English Boom last year.

According to an unpublished letter written by the late Jack Davis of
Olympia, Purple Martins began using single wooden nestboxes for the
first time in 1976 at the Fiddlehead marina . Although there are
two documented instances of martins using nestboxes in the Northwest
prior to 1976, that year marked the beginning of a concerted effort
on the part of Jack and friends, in Washington and Oregon, to
publicize a perceived decline in the regional martin population, and
promote a recovery.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife listed martins as a
Candidate for state Threatened status in 1981. Soon thereafter
martins were classified as Sensitive in the Critical category by the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, and were Red Listed in
British Columbia, also as a Candidate for Threatened status. Purple
Martins have been recognized as a Species of Concern in California
since 1978. Surveys have been done, and status reports on
distribution and abundance have been published in recent years for
all west coast jurisdictions, except Washington .

This year, the beginning of the fourth decade of martin recovery in
the Northwest, a small group of Washington volunteers is hoping to
finally fill the west coast data gap, by surveying known and
potential breeding locations in Washington state. The area to be
searched is large, twenty counties, along the Columbia River, on the
Pacific coast, and around Puget Sound. More volunteers are
needed . Anyone interested is welcome and encouraged to
participate. The only requirement is the ability to identify a
Purple Martin. Spotting scope very helpful, but not necessary
depending on how close you can get to the nesting cavities. We can
provide the location of known and potential breeding sites in your area.

Contributions may range from casual observations that document the
presence of birds, to counting numbers of breeding pairs at
individual colonies based on presence of eggs or nestlings, and or
observing and recording diagnostic behaviors of breeding adults,
such as food carrying, or fecal sac removal. Prime time for
observation will be July and first half of August.

All cooperators will be acknowledged in any publication, most
likely a technical report published in cooperation with WDFW.

Anyone interested in participating in this ongoing effort should
contact Kris Baker at blue_firetail at yahoo.com, and me.

And, please forward this to anyone you think may be interested who
does not necessarily read Tweeters.

Thanks,

Stan Kostka
lynnandstan at earthlink.net
Arlington WA
N48 15.37 W122 06.50