Purple Martins are starting to leave their wintering grounds and are headed our way!

Purple Martins (PUMA) migrate from North America to spend the winter in South America, primarily in the Amazon Basin, with the majority heading to Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and surrounding countries like Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. They undertake this long journey to find abundant insects in the tropical climate, completing their feather molt there before returning north in the spring. Soon it will be time to start looking out for the first Purple Martin Scouts. The first scout that we reported to the database last year was on May 16. Hopefully, it won’t take them that long this year, as they know where we are. We’re also setting up three Bluebird nesting boxes ahead of time to ensure that the Bluebirds will have an alternative to building their nests in the PUMA gourds!

Purple Martin “Scout”: The term scout is given to the very first martin(s) observed back at an active colony site each year.  Scouts are the oldest individuals in the population, who migrate north as early as weather allows.  They can be either male or female.  People once thought that martin scouts flew North in search of suitable breeding sites and then returned South to guide their colonies back to the sites they had selected. According to PMCA this is not true.  A martin “colony” is a random aggregation of unrelated birds attracted to a common breeding site.  Colony members do not travel in or function as a flock.  They arrive in spring, and depart in late summer, independently of each other.  Martin scouts will stay at a site if they nested there the previous year, or move on if they are migrants, resting on the way to their breeding sites.

Scout-Arrival Study: The Scout-Arrival Study documents the first arriving Purple Martins at nesting sites.  Landlords throughout the breeding range submit their first returning adult and sub-adult to the PMCA.  This information is used to track the spring migration progress of Purple Martins.

This information is important to us as landlords so that we can close our martin housing during early spring to keep out competing bird species.  We will use Scout-Arrival Data to determine the best time to open our housing for martins at the Equestrian Center on Seabrook Island.

We hope to start setting up the Bluebird houses in early February and return the gourds to the PUMA housing unit shortly after that. Once the Bluebirds have established interest in their housing and we have begun to see Purple Martins in the area we will open up the gourds and watch for our first scouts.

If you are interested in learning more about the project or have an interest in joining us to help with the Bluebird housing let us know at seabrookislandbirders@gmail.com.

Written by Jennifer Jerome
Photos: Jennifer Jerome, Gina Sanders, Purple Martin Conservation Association website