Subject: [Tweeters] Everett Purple Martins
Date: Aug 3 12:28:37 2010
From: jeff gibson - gibsondesign at msn.com



After numerous abeit brief trips to the Everett waterfront this spring and fall I have not seen any Purple Martins - until yesterday (8/2) when I saw two in and around one of the nest boxes further out on the pilings. A female entered the box for a short while and another bird ( I think an imm male but maybe another female) dive bombed an Osprey sitting atop the pile that the nest box was on.

At the NE 'corner' of the big 10th street boatlaunch parking lot is an area of decaying old pilings which had a bit of mud exposed. About a half dozen Killdeer, a few Western Sandpipers and 3 or 4 Spotted Sandpipers were all concentrated down there. The martin box that is nearshore there was used by starlings earlier in the year and is packed with grass up to the entry hole - a sign of Starlings or House Sparrow ? At any rate no martins although they have used that box (or tried to) in past years.

Jeff Gibson, Everett Wa