These Birds Got a Little Too Comfortable in Birdhouses

November 15, 2023 3:08 PM

These Birds Got a Little Too Comfortable in Birdhouses. Purple martins may have been saved by human-built nest boxes. What happens when our hospitality runs out?
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries (11 comments total)

I read this as "purple martinis" and was like WOW, what a bird name!

Now off to RTA.
posted by cnidaria at 4:11 PM on November 15, 2023 [4 favorites]

Any species that relies on the benevolence of human beings is at grave risk; this includes our own species
posted by librosegretti at 4:17 PM on November 15, 2023 [7 favorites]

I think barn swallows now only nest on and in human structures*, which is not quite the same thing, but similar.

* Before humans, they would seek out cliff faces and similar
posted by maxwelton at 6:56 PM on November 15, 2023

Do the martins not nest in bridges like swallows?
posted by eustatic at 7:05 PM on November 15, 2023

When I was growing up, I was always told that it was important to have some gourds or a purple martin house in a back yard because the purple martins ate mosquitoes. Either that isn’t really true or they can eat absolutely all they want without causing a dent in the southern mosquito population.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:51 PM on November 15, 2023

Oh hey, I made a zine about this! Being a purple martin "landlord" requires owning your own home and having the time to tend the nests. I know at least one colony here where the nests are cleaned daily (primarily to keep out invasive species) and doing so requires the effort of multiple people. It's a community effort. Decline in home ownership among younger generations is surely part of it. (And not purely just ownership. Now that houses are seen more as speculative goods, people aren't likely to spend significant money on building things that lower resell value like specialized bird nests that lead to a lot of bird poop.)
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:00 PM on November 15, 2023 [3 favorites]

There's a history of this. Columba livia, the rock dove, used to nest on cliff-ledges but greatly expanded its range as flying rat feral pigeon when people started constructing artificial cliffs aka buildings across the globe.

In 2016, the Department of Ag here offered farmers, including "farmers" like us, a subsidy if they would construct and install bird boxes, bat boxes and solitary bee hotels. The grant just about paid for the cost of construction if we valued the build-time at €0. Because tree-huggers, we went for the max number allowed for in the budget. Neither bat, nor bird, nor bee ever inhabited these structures and yesterday I found one lying on the ground beneath the tree we'd hung it on 7 years ago. DeptAg is now starting another cycle of bio-diversity initiatives including boxes customized for barn owl Tyto alba, swallows Hirundo rustica and swifts Apus apus but I think I gave already.
posted by BobTheScientist at 12:31 AM on November 16, 2023 [2 favorites]

I think about this as I fill the Hummingbird feeder and wonder what kind of arrangements I will have to make if I ever want to leave.
posted by Pembquist at 10:14 AM on November 16, 2023

We had a purple martin birdhouse in our front yard when I was a kid. It ended up being a thing.

My eccentric mother wanted to put it up. But apparently it had to be at just the right height -- around 22 feet or something -- or the purple martins wouldn't use it. This entailed a steel pole and a concrete base in the ground, which ended up with a fairly elaborate house on top. It ended up requiring a significant amount of money and effort, and my parents fought over it. As a young child, I kept waiting for some kind of purple colored birds to appear.

The purple martins never came. I don't think anything ever lived in that thing. Goddamned birds.
posted by mikeand1 at 9:11 AM on November 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Did y'all have just the one, or was it one pole but many houses? I get the impression that they like to hang out in groups so might not want to live in a single box.

Another fun fact about the birds is that the older birds migrate north earlier than the young birds because they want to go claim the best house. They'll see a good looking house one year, then try and get a jump on it the next year before others can move in.
posted by tofu_crouton at 9:52 AM on November 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

One of my uncles had a very elaborate Purple Martin house on his property when I was a child that probably had a few dozen boxes. It was a miniature Victorian mansion complete with turrets, dormers, turned balusters on the porches and gingerbread on the eaves. One of the great injustices of my young life was our house not being located in their range and so we couldn't put up one of those houses. Still is really.
posted by Mitheral at 1:19 PM on November 17, 2023 [3 favorites]