Scouts erect new Purple Martin houses
By Paul Noeldner
Friends of Urban Nature
Our bird of the month for June and July is the Purple Martins, in honor of new Northside Community Science Volunteer projects.
Madison Scouts Theo Mayer with Troop 127, and Elliot Howen with Troop 88, led ambitious Eagle Scout projects to put up new 12-gourd Purple Martin houses at Warner Park near the Rainbow Shelter and at Cherokee Marsh near a pond along Wheeler Road. The scouts worked closely with Wild Warner, Friends of Cherokee Marsh, Madison Friends of Urban Nature and Madison Parks, with generous donations from Mark Martin, Russ Hefty and others.
The scouts gave presentations and led a Martin house-raising celebration during the Bird and Nature Festival in April. A Purple Martin visited it almost immediately.
Theo summed it up by saying, “I enjoyed setting up the project and executing it because my intention was always to do something related to living things, and these houses have a real, visible impact on Purple Martins in the area.”
The Friends of Starkweather Creek also put up a new Martin house in Olbrich Park, and the Martin houses at Tenney Park and Warner Beach are full of birds again.
Purple Martins are large robin-sized swallows with blue backs and white chests that eat tons of bugs on the wing. Native Americans and people of other cultures historically put up gourds for Martins to nest in near their homes and gardens because they provide natural insect population control for free without poisons that can harm humans and wildlife.
Martins are communal nesters, with many pairs nesting near each other. Because hollow, dead tree cavities have become fairly uncommon as humans take over more of the natural world, Martins depend almost entirely on human-provided gourd-shaped houses and apartment-style boxes mounted on poles.
To help Martins and other birds, frogs and wildlife ecosystems, please don’t kill every mosquito and bug in your yard. Mosquitos and other bugs are the main foundation of the natural food pyramid and the natural balance of nature.
You can enjoy Purple Martins swooping in and out of their gourd-shaped houses and singing almost constantly at Warner Park, Cherokee Marsh, Olbrich Park, Tenney Park and other Madison parks.
Volunteer to help with projects and do weekly monitoring of Martin houses, Bluebird boxes and other community science volunteer activities by signing up at Madison Parks website cityofmadison.com/parks, select “volunteer” and scroll to the “conservation” link. Its great fun and rewarding time in nature.
Contact Madison FUN at paul_no
eldner@hotmail.com or 608-698-0104 for more information. Join the fun outdoors!
