I watched with a satisfied feeling, forgetting how much larger martins are than the dozens of tree swallows that are housed on our property every summer and I see daily, every year. I haven't seen a PM in three summers, and only brief viewings at that with 5 actual purple martins seen in 14 years, so this is kind of big for me. The best part is that this is my best site to date, and we've been at this house for three summers so this is the first martin to actually see the site.
He stayed for about an hour, perched in a dead ash tree close to the housing, buzzed the housing and decoys and then took off and flew out of site for the rest of the day. Looked surprisingly comfortable.
This morning around 10:30, there I heard him again, this time on the housing chirping. I had moved the speaker horn to the martin housing from where it was 100 yards away on a high hill for maximum sound travel. I watched as he stayed for almost an hour again, jumping from gourd to chalet, peeking in the holes to find out where that sound was coming from. I turned the dawnsong way down today, to very quiet just to keep him interested.
I gotta admit, it feels really good to see one again. It's tough up here with no known colonies within 50 miles all to the Southeast. I'd really love to know where he hatched from.
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