Aggressive Purple Martin?

[Ginny Pres]

About a dozen of our Purple Martins are already here. We have something we've never had before. What appears to be a sub-adult male (or possibly a female) is very aggressive. It will approach another Martin and "peck" (or nudge) with its beak and force the other bird to move. This has been going on for a couple of days. Is this kind of aggression from a sub-adult or female even possible? I did a little internet search, and I wonder if it could be a Northern Rough-winged Swallow. Is this possible. From what I read, the Northern R-W Swallow doesn't use Purple Martin housing, but could they? Thanks for any input!

[randyM]

The individual bird you are referring to is likely a dominant adult female martin. I've observed similar behavior at my colony from males and females alike...most birds that exist together in close proximity have some type of pecking order, hence the reference "pecking". Northern rough-winged swallows typically nest in earthen tunnels along stream or riverbanks and are not known to nest in man-made housing like tree swallows and violet-green swallows generally do. Also, rough-winged swallows are noticeably smaller than martins, so if the bossy bird at your colony is not any smaller than the other martins, it's probably an adult female martin and not a NRW swallow.

Randy

[Ginny Pres]

Thanks for providing some clarity. I guess it's just strange to us that we've never observed this type of behavior from a female Purple Martin before. Maybe as more of our colony arrives she will settle down?

[C.C.Martins]

Sounds like a good strong girl, hope she passes those traits to her fledges. Enjoy the show!

[flyin-lowe]

Likely way to early to have sub adults in your area. If you think this nudging is aggressive wait until you see a sub adult fight an adult to the ground, or start dragging babies out of a nest. They can be nasty.