Five thousand miles of air travel might sound like a daunting endeavor, but purple martins living locally will be making this long trek to Brazil and other locations in South America four to six weeks after raising their young in Ohio and the rest of the United States.
Saturday, a number of Benjamin Logan students and their families had the opportunity to view nestling purple martins up close and learn about their behaviors when Dr. Jackie Augustine, Ohio State University at Lima associate professor of biology, and her graduate assistant, Chelsea Wright, visited the area to band some Logan County martins.
Three martin houses at the Stoll farm were examined first. Dr. Augustine selected two nestlings to band. She and her assistant recorded measurements such as wing and tail length. The birds were then weighed before a small numbered band was placed on one leg of each bird.
This information will be entered into a database and be available to any researcher interested in purple martins. If the band is recovered at some point in the future, it may yield information about migration patterns and life span.
From the Stoll farm, the group traveled to Myeerah Nature Preserve, where a martin house had been installed in the winter by the Benjamin Logan Environmental Science Club.
Two additional birds were banded at Myeerah. The final stop was the Benjamin Logan campus where a martin house was erected two years ago by the Environmental Science Club.
When martin houses are installed, it sometimes takes a few seasons for martins to be attracted and become residents. Both the Myeerah house and the campus house were successful the first year.
Martins are members of the swallow family, representatives from the Benjamin Logan Environmental Science Club noted. Adult males are dark blue/black/purple all over while females have a lighter colored underside. The birds eat insects exclusively and unlike other insect-eaters such as bluebirds, which hunt from a perch, purple martins hunt on the wing.
Making large circles in the air, they use their long pointed wings for speed and their tails as rudders to make sharp turns. Bristles along the edge of a wide mouth help direct their flight to nearby prey.
Martins have long been prized by humans for their insect diet. According to the Cornell Lab, Native Americans hung gourds on poles to attract martins, and in 1831, the naturalist John James Audubon observed “Almost every country tavern has a martin box on the upper part of its sign-board; and I have observed that the handsomer the box, the better does the inn generally prove to be.”
Today, martins living east of the Rockies nest almost exclusively in man-made structures.
This weekend’s outing was sponsored by the Benjamin Logan Environmental Science Club, which is an outreach project of the Logan County Land Trust and the school district. Students from third- through 12th-grade are involved. It is coordinated by Bob Stoll, Land Trust president, and Spencer Reames and Bruce Smith, Benjamin Logan teachers.