Purple Martin

Erika and I stopped at KGBY point in Olympia on 11 August 2020. We watched about a dozen Purple Martins as they flew around the harbor. I previously reported that western Purple Martins differ from their eastern cousins by breeding in natural holes in trees or, occasionally, in single-hole human-made bird houses. Western martins do not seem to prefer the multi-room apartments inhabited by eastern birds. Many of the martins we saw flew about what appeared to be numbered bird boxes placed on harbor harbor poles. Certainly this placement protects the martins from most land predators. In other locations across the country, dragonflies make up a large portion of their diets. Hardly any dragonflies, however, breed even near salt water, so these birds must be eating something else. Fortunately, martins also eat a wide variety of other arthropods. In these photos, the top bird is an exceptionally iridescent male. The flying bird, judging by its dark secondary feathers and by the blue on its forehead, is a probably a young male.