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Posts Tagged "colony"

Purple Martins

Posted on Jul 15, 2015

Purple Martins

Purple Martins (Progne subis) are a unique species even among other unique birds! These sizable aerial insectivores nest only within human-manufactured cavities including gourds, apartments and other types of boxes essentially everywhere to the east of the Rocky Mountains. This is due to Native Americans hosting them in gourds for thousands of years, slowly shifting their breeding behavior to using artificial structures as it was such a successful and mutually beneficial relationship. Without our help it is likely they would be entirely eliminated in this part of their range. Marketing is a...

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Purple Martin Wire

Posted on Jun 30, 2015

Purple Martin Wire

There are precious few moments for Purple Martins (Progne subis) to rest at this time of the year with so many hungry mouths to feed back at their gourd. All of the cool butterflies and dragonflies that we regularly post are prey for these birds, and if you visit an especially populated gourd colony you will end up finding parts of them on the ground underneath. They used to be billed as mosquito eaters to help sell those apartments (ain’t marketing grand?) but the Purple Martin relies on much larger prey. If you ever have the chance to watch them feeding their young be prepared for...

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