Martins often absent in urban areas

[John Miller]

It's always a little disturbing to me to see an absence of large urban cities on the scout reports. There is not one report from Atlanta. I don't think there's even one from Oklahoma City.

There are bright spots of course...we got 'um here in St. Louis. In fact, we have had long before I started managing them. Found a newspaper article in the archives of the St. Louis Post Dispatch where a local birding club in 1914 counted purple martins among the species seen in "Shaw's Garden," the old name for the Missouri Botanical Garden, and again in 1916 in Forest Park.

And there's even martins in New York City. A small colony resides in Lemon Creek Park on Staten Island.

A few years ago, volunteers in Chicago were depicted in some news stories about their efforts to re-establish martins along Lake Michigan, but I have not heard more.

There are martins in Louisville -- at the Ford Motor plant -- the colony managed by Larry Melcher.

Martins are happy to be urban birds, if given some housing in an open area and historically probably nested in most cities in the east.

Perhaps others here know about more urban colonies -- would love to hear about them.

[Courtney-NC]

I help manage a colony at University Club which is almost smack dab in the middle of Raleigh, NC. It is next to the NCSU Vet School, so there are dairy cows in the pasture behind the housing and a golf course on the other side. It is very open, and there is a large pond in the pasture. All around it though is busy city life! It's like a little oasis.
This is an old colony that the city grew up around over time. it was going to be taken down some years ago when a developer bought the property but another NCPMS member Tim Francis intervened and with others ultimately saved the colony.
We now do banding out there every year with some guys from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, and we have had kids come over to see the birds as well as various other groups. It's been a great place to expose the public to martins.

[John Miller]

Courtney

That's great to hear. I used to worry about city martins finding enough bugs to eat, but apparently there are tons of migrating beetles and dragon flies way up there. The martins say -- duh.

Maybe the Raleigh paper would consider a feature story on your urban martins this season.

John Miller

[4th Gen Martin Fan]

John,
I like this topic you have presented.
I believe that your work in St. Louis proves that what we as martin hosts do makes a difference in our prospective areas. Both short term and long term.
An urban area with long purple martin tradition is San Antonio, TX. I see a lot of reports from San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas.
However, you may be referring to downtown urban areas with tall skyscrapers, etc. and not just the metropolitan area.
Mark.

[John Miller]

Mark

Texas is the exception. God bless Texas. I find it a little sad not to find many reports -- sometimes none -- from big cities in other states. We know there are martins in small towns, fortunately. Was looking at Virginia and got me started on this. Nothing from Roanoke, Charlottesville, Richmond. But Virginia has martins reported in small towns statewide.

I saw a historic martin house photo recently from Cincinnati along the river front. Have not looked, but I doubt there are reports from there. Of course Ohio is rich with martins otherwise.

John M

[mcollmer]

John, there is a scout report from Oklahoma City.
It is OKC Nichols Hills.

[RC Moser]

OKC about 50 miles across and up and down. Now if you don't count the small suburbs of OKC then you have zero. Now if you count the area that OKC covers you would have 9 scout reports.

[Fred Kaluza~MI]

I think urban folks are more intolerant of insects and are more apt to be using pesticides on anything and everything thereby increasing insect mortality. Couple that with an increase in the prevalence of House Sparrows and few to no natural nesting sites and most cities are effectively inhospitable to Martins. Did I forget to mention typical cities don't have many ponds around either.

[Dick Sherry]

John, this is an interesting question, and I wonder if there aren't martin colonies in urban areas, but the landlords either aren't familiar with the PMCA (hard to imagine!), or they just don't take the time to report scout arrivals. I know things have changed in Tulsa from the time I was growing up, and there were numerous small to medium sized martin colonies all over town. Most of them were in homemade wooden martin houses. As the Trio aluminum houses came on the scene and became very popular, the wooden houses began to disappear. I am concerned that as the generation ahead of us got older, they moved and their martin colonies declined and disappeared. Our generation has not been as in touch with Nature, but there are some very dedicated landlords who have developed some amazing martin colonies that are very well managed and produce a lot of young martins every year. I guess I miss the sight of a unique wooden house covered with martins that are singing their bubbling songs unbothered by starlings or the threat of an attack from a sharpshinned or Cooper's hawk. The numbers at the Tulsa roost indicate we still have a lot of martins in this area, but I am not sure where they are nesting, but probably a lot are in the more developed parts of town.

[DornCounty]

Dick I have often wondered in my mind if a 90 or 100 mile radius make up a roost. About the only way to have that many martins, isn't it?

[Dick Sherry]

Dorn, it is probably pretty close to that. I wish there was a way to know for sure, but there isn't. I would also like to know how the martins communicate with each other about the location of the major roosts. There is so much we will never know, but it is fun to speculate.

[Susquatch]

It's always a little disturbing to me to see an absence of large urban cities on the scout reports.

Hmmmmm.......

Here is a collection of random thoughts on the subject.

My martins drink on the fly from my pond - not my swimming pool. Where are all the city ponds?

My martins seem to catch a plethora of dragon flies, mayflies, midges, and water based flies and bugs. They particularly love the breeding swarms of insects that gather in huge clouds above the forest. Not too many of any of these food choices in the suburbs of the big cities, and virtually none in the core areas. This has nothing to do with the use of chemicals. Its more about the absence of bug breeding habitat.

I have seen many successful colonies in the suburbs as I drive around. I've never seen even one in a downtown area. However, I have seen condos full of sparrows almost everywhere.

It seems to me that trapping sparrows in a downtown area would be a rather futile exercise. There is one hiding behind every leaf, can, and fence picket. Not to mention the risk of being frowned upon for exercising any effort to control sparrows and starlings.

I wonder how many people who live in the country live there because of the abundant wildlife - including swallows. In other words, maybe this is more about where "GOOD" landlords like to live than about where swallows like to live.......

On this same vein, I think "the majority" of city folks would rather watch wildlife on TV than look after a condo. This comment isn't intended to insult those who live in the city, but just to state a personal observation that I think is rather sad.

I think Cities tend to have a denser population of predators like cats, squirrels, possums, and racoons, and more loud noises too.

To sum all these random thoughts up..... If I were a martin, I would choose to live where there is lots of food, water I can scoop up when I am thirsty, fewer predators, less competition from sparrows and starlings, and ....... loving landlords.......

As you have stated, there are many great exceptions. But I'll bet these exceptions are great exceptions BECAUSE they satisfy the needs of those martins who choose to live there.