Purple Martin

This is the largest swallow species in North America.  For centuries, Native people in the eastern part of the continent provided dry gourd shells as nest sites for these birds.  People there now commonly provide large apartment-like multi-dwelling nest boxes.  The Purple Martins here on the West Coast prefer somewhat more individual, detached nest boxes.  The Eastern and Western birds are now recognized as genetic sub-species. 

            The western race of the Purple Martin was very common in the Lower Mainland until the 1940s, when it nearly disappeared due to severe habitat loss in both here and in its South American wintering grounds.  They continued to breed on southern Vancouver Island until recent years.  In the early 1990s, extensive conservation efforts were made to re-establish nest sites by providing nest boxes, first at Maplewood Flats in North Vancouver (where birds returned soon after the program started) and at offshore at Rocky Point in Port Moody (where they returned in the spring of 1996).  They arrive late in season in May and June from South America for breeding, and return to their southern wintering grounds in September.  Their soft chirping calls can be heard most clearly in the early morning.  Purple Martin songs and calls are described in detail at http://www.troycable.net/~w/wpmvocals.html.