Hi Jennifer, several people forwarded your Tweeters post to me,
sorry for the delayed response, I have been working under a few
deadlines recently.

Nesting habits of martins are extremely diverse, depends on where in
North America. The new edition of Birds of Washington contains an
accurate account for this state. I don't know of any controlled
studies, but based on recent history, and several years of
surveys, seems martins certainly prefer the marine shoreline in
this region. That's where the perceived remnant population was
breeding decades ago when the nestbox recovery began, and that's
where most nestboxes [and gourds] are installed today. But, even
when birdhouses are removed from the equation, martins still seem to
prefer the marine shoreline. I've been surveying Jefferson County
for several years and gathering info from other observers, all the
breeders found there are on the marine shoreline, even though I have
searched many upland freshwater sites and timber harvest areas with
retained snags. Of the 33 known pairs at 10 sites in Jefferson
county in 2005 only 5 pair were using nestboxes, 12 were in rot
pockets in horizontal timbers in docks and piers, 3 under piling
caps, 5 in old woodpecker holes in pilings, 3 on ledges under an old
pier, 4 in abandoned pipes on old piers, and one in the exhaust pipe
on an old ship. In previous years in Jefferson martins nested on a
navigation marker, and once in the open end of the boom on an
inactive sailboat. As to why the birds prefer marine sites is
anyones guess, but likely it has to do with a reduction of climbing
predators when nests are over water, and maybe the effect of the
saltwater environment on nest parasites. Estuarine nests tend to be
relatively blowfly free, whereas upland nests are known have much
higher rates of infestation. Most non marine sites are associated
with freshwater. Kevin and later his friends used gourds to
establish three new colonies on Lake Washington over the past two
seasons. Some WA breeding sites are not directly associated with water.

WDFW maintains a database of historic nest sites for martins, and
that data accurately represents general distribution in this state.

The notion that martins no longer nest in natural cavities is
certainly NOT true. While it is accurate to say that virtually all
known martins well east of the continental divide use birdhouses
(some tree nesting currently known in Florida), the majority of
western martins continue to nest in natural cavities. It's easy to
lose sight of this when so much attention is paid to artificial
nesting cavities here in the Pacific Northwest, where most known
breeders are in birdhouses. But, Washington state has several known
sites where martins use tree cavities. There are very recently
documented snag nesters in Pierce, Skamania, Klickitat, and Clark
counties. I think there are snag nesters in Mason county as well,
and perhaps Thurston and Lewis, just haven't been able to find
them, yet. Fort Lewis in Pierce likely has the most snag nesters
in WA. Sam Agnew told me recently he thinks there are more snag
nesters on the fort now than box nesters. Last summer Jim Lynch and
I spent a day driving around the fort simply listening for martins in
areas with snags, and we found some previously unknown snag sites
rather easily. Problem is that extensive areas of the military
reservation are off limits during the martin breeding season. Likely
there are a significant number of unknown sites on the fort. BC, WA,
and OR are the only states/provinces in the western range where
martins are known to use birdhouses. Martins are known to breed in
California, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and recently have
been found in Wyoming. Likely there are some breeders in other
western states as well, such as Idaho. Conservation efforts in
Colorado are focusing on identifying breeding locations and habitat
protection, no one is advocating the introduction of birdhouses
there, that I am aware of. One current estimate puts the size of
the western population in the US and Canada between five and ten
thousand pairs, which is somewhere between about 1/10 and 2/10ths of
one percent of the entire North American population, based on Rich
et al 2004 estimate of eleven million for Progne subis. There are
supposedly about one million martins in Mexico, but I am skeptical
of that estimate, based on what we know about martin distribution and
abundance in the western US where they rely on natural cavities.

I have never seen the entirety of any text referring to Eastern North
American Indians putting up gourds for martins, but some of these
sources are referenced below, part of an article at http://
purplemartin.org/update/Indigenous.html. Likely someone at the PMCA
can provide complete citations. Apparently the aboriginal impulse
to manage nest sites for martins was not entirely altruistic.

In 1831, Alexander Wilson wrote: "even the solitary Indian seems to
have a particular respect for this bird." He gives an account of the
methods used by the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians who "cut off all
the top branches from a sapling near their cabins, leaving the prongs
a foot or two in length, on each of which they hang a gourd, or
calabash, properly hollowed out for their convenience." In 1929,
Forbush added that "when saplings were not conveniently situated the
Indians set up poles, fastened crossbars to them and hung the gourds
to these crossbars." According to Cooke's 1884 account, the Chippewa
Indian name for the martin was: "Mu-ku-d?-shau-sha?-wun-ni-b?-si." In
1753, Dumont wrote: "The savages have another secret for the
preservation of their beaver, otter, bear, or fox skins, from
injurious animals, especially moths, and those Frenchman who go to
trade among them do not fail to take advantage of this in the
preservation of their pelts. For this purpose they make use of the
body of a certain bird which in many places is called a
'fisher' [probably a heron or a kingfisher]. After having dried it,
some of them cut it into many small pieces which they put here and
there on their skins. Others reduce it to fine powder, which they
scatter over the skin side of the hair. In whatever way one makes use
of it, it is certain that the odor of this bird drives away moths and
all other destructive creatures which might be able to injure the
peltries. It is asserted that the martin (martinet), a kind of bird
which resembles the swallow, has the same virtue and the same
properties."

The only other citation I have ever seen referring to indigenous
Americans and martins using gourds is Catesby, M.R. 1731. The natural
history of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands. London, U.K..
Catesby is cited in the natural history section of David Wiggins'
2005 Conservation Assessment for the Forest Service Rocky Mountain
Region. The entire text of Wiggins is available at http://
www.fs.fed.us/r2/projects/scp/assessments/purplemartin.pdf One thing
in Wiggins that I disagree with is his statement that martins in the
Northwest are the least studied of western populations. In my
opinion, martins in the Northwest are the most studied of the
western birds. One excellent review of Northwest martins is Cousens
et al 2005 at http://www.psat.wa.gov/Publications/05_proceedings/
papers/P1_COUSE.pdf

Since the late 1990s a small group of folks interested in western
martins has been meeting annually. The 2007 meeting will be October
24 at the Gifford Pinchot National Forest headquarters in Vancouver
WA. Anyone with an interest in martins is welcome to attend. There
will be updates on research into the morphology and genetics of
martins that is not yet in publication. I will be collecting data
and banding again this year, can always use help if you are
interested in looking into nests and seeing adults in hand. Height
of that activity will be June, July and August. And there is always
a need for monitoring of various colony sites around the Sound.

Stan Kostka lynnandstan AT earthlink.net Arlington WA

On 2/16/07 12:30 PM, "Jennifer Vanderhoof" <sky_bird_69 at yahoo.com>
wrote:

I am looking for information on the nesting habits of Purple Martins.
With Kevin Li?s passing, I no longer know who to contact about these
birds and their habits. I am interested in learning if anyone has
done studies on site preferences of their nest cavities. I would also
be interested if anyone could point me in the direction of historic
nesting info. I have heard that this species has not nested in
natural cavities in a very long time, as Native peoples also provided
gourds for them. I would like to see literature on this topic.