Birdwatching: Rejoice in the return of purple martins

Published 12:25 pm Tuesday, May 2, 2017

ILWACO — The Salt Hotel and Pub field trip, co-sponsored with the Friends of Willapa National Wildlife Refuge, was a roaring success a week ago. Eleven birders hiked around the Ilwaco harbor in search of birds and other wildlife. In preparation for the birding trip, my friend Susan Stauffer and I birded the port every chance we got to see who was likely to be there on the big day, and we often scouted the area more than once a day.

The red-throated loon, common loon, greater scaup and bufflehead were among the birds that made an appearance the week before and on the big day.

The one bird we had hoped for was the purple martin. It did not make an appearance prior to the trip. My immediate thoughts went to a previous article I wrote about it, which dealt with its elusiveness. We, as leaders of this adventure, had hoped that the purple martin would make an appearance.

As we stepped out into the glorious sunshine on the big day, our quest for wildlife began with the appearance of the tiny least sandpiper on the mudflats left behind by the ebbing tide below the grassy green edge along the pathway. They seem to follow us as we made our way around the port. The “pickins” were good that day!

All of a sudden, a gurgling, liquid warble was heard from on high. The purple martins had returned! Two males and a female were resting on one of the poles that dot the harbor’s landscape. The purple martin is our largest swallow. At eight inches in size, it is just slightly smaller than a robin. The male’s overall appearance is a bluish-purple-blackish color. The female has pale cheeks and throat, an obvious white collar and a whitish forehead.

The song of the male purple martin sounds like a gurgling, liquid warble but it has a variety of calls including laughing chuckles, and slurred whistles. The female also has a song, but it mainly consists of whistles with a few gleeful sounding chuckles thrown in.

It appears as though more than one pair of purple martins will take up residence in the Ilwaco harbor. There are plenty of posts with holes that provide suitable nesting spots. We tend to think of purple martins as the creators of small neighborhoods because they like to set up housekeeping in a purple martin apartment house. The Cornell Ornithological Lab, however, reminds us that this nesting behavior is more typical in the East, while martins in the West still prefer to nest in old woodpecker holes. The holes in the many of the Ilwaco marina posts seem to suit martins that visit us to a “T”!

Martins are fine aerialists. They wheel across the sky snapping up insects as they go. They fly high so they don’t always grab our attention until their telltale gurgling is heard. Once again, we should take time to enjoy the return of the purple martin to the Peninsula. To see and hear it, will make your day, just as it did on our big day!