Released: March 17, 2005

Purple Martins, Eastern Bluebirds Soon To Be Nesting in Kansas

JUNCTION CITY, Kan. – One of them is the largest swallow in North America. The other is a medium-sized thrush, known mostly for being “pretty.” Still, purple martins and Eastern bluebirds have a lot in common – especially in terms of needing help to find a good place to live.

“Both species would be in real trouble if humans hadn’t started supplying suitable places for them to nest. In fact, for Kansans who’ve been doing that, now is the time to prepare for the 2005 nesting season. Both birds prefer to return to the same area or even to the same house year after year,” said Chuck Otte, a natural resources agent with Kansas State University Research and Extension.

Purple martins are the only bird species in the eastern United States that are totally dependent on human-made living quarters, said Otte, who is an officer in the Kansas Ornithological Society. They’ve been that way for more than 100 years.

“They’ve lost an enormous amount of nesting habitat. At the same time, I suspect they’ve always been a bird that people liked having nest close by. Native Americans were hanging up empty gourds for purple martins long before any Europeans arrived on the continent,” Otte added.

Purple martins are the reason people put up apartment-style birdhouses on tall poles, hoping the birds will nest there and control the area’s mosquitoes.

Unfortunately, purple martins and mosquitoes tend to fly in different air space, the agent said. Still, just one purple martin can consume up to 2,000 flying insects per day. Their usual prey include wasps, moths, flies, grasshoppers, midges, cicadas, stinkbugs, beetles, ballooning spiders, and dragonflies.

In the 1960s and ‘70s, bluebirds were getting hard to find until people started installing bluebird trails and nesting boxes. Now they’re making a comeback, too, Otte said.

Their houses are harder to notice than the purple martins’ apartments, though. Eastern bluebirds like open spaces and a nesting box that reminds them of an old tree cavity or wood fencepost. From there, they specialize in eating berries and insects that stay close to the ground.

Both birds will be starting to nest in Kansas this month, Otte said, so their “landlords” should be cleaning out their houses or boxes, making any needed repairs, and making sure the housing is in correct position.

“Landlords” also will have to keep watch to ensure that more aggressive house sparrows and European starlings don’t quickly co-opt the purple martins’ and bluebirds’ space.

More information about the needed preparation for purple martins is available on the Web at http://www.purplemartin.org/ . Information on getting ready for Eastern bluebirds is at http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/ .

-30-

K-State Research and Extension is a short name for the Kansas State University Agricultural Experiment Station and Cooperative Extension Service, a program designed to generate and distribute useful knowledge for the well-being of Kansans. Supported by county, state, federal and private funds, the program has county Extension offices, experiment fields, area Extension offices and regional research centers statewide. Its headquarters is on the K-State campus, Manhattan.

Story by:
Kathleen Ward
kward@oznet.ksu.edu
K-State Research& Extension News