Imagine the feeling of always knowing where you are going without a fear of being lost.
While that’s a foreign concept formany humans, purple martins are able to travel thousands of miles and they know exactly where they are going.
The Purple Martin Conservation Association in Erie is working to help people understand these unique birds that migrate from the United States to Brazil each year. They have a live YouTube video on their website,purplemartin.org, where you can watch a bird that is brooding over six eggs.
Watch the live cam of the Purple Martin nest in Erie
Joe Siegrist, president and CEO of the association, believes the eggs will hatch sometime around Thursday.
“The main reason is to put purple martins and their conservation on people’s radar,” he said of the webcam. The hatchlings are given a numbered leg band for monitoring purposes to see which birds make it back to their original nesting area.
This is the sixth year for the live cam at the Tom Ridge Environmental Center near the entrance toPresque Isle State Park.
Admire the fireflies:It’s firefly season, here’s what you need to know
The female in this year’s nest is a bird that was actually hatched in 2016 at the center. In a previous year, the bird was in an adjacent nest to the live cam and viewers thought the bird was “flirting” with a male associated with another nest. That's how she earned the name Jolene from the famous Dolly Parton country song.
The male in this year’s nest is named Ragnotha as a tribute to a warrior in the Eriez tribe that originally inhabited the area. Ragnotha hatched at a nearby colony in 2017.
“It’s a wonderful outreach tool,” Siegrist said about the nest cam reaching new and younger audiences. The video has worked as a fundraising tool, and people are sending in donations to help cover the association’s costs and ongoing research. “It’s really taken off.”
Fishing advice:One bait for all types of fish
Over the lifetime of the livestream, he said they have had about 9 millions views.The video has a chat feature where people can comment and ask questions. Thanks to "the magic of Google translate,” he saidthey have been communicating with viewers from around the globe.
The birds fly to Brazil for the winter months but return to the United States and Canada to nest. The unfortunate part is that the birds require existing places to make their summer home, like a birdhouse. There isn’t enough proper habitat for purple martins to find holes such as made by woodpeckers to make nests.
Siegrist explained that the natural habitat has been reduced so much that the birds need humans to make them more homes. “People are responsible for the survival of the species,” he said. People need to put out birdhouses that have several compartments for the birds to roost.
Small birdhouses don’t attract purple martins as they are a social being wanting to live in a colony atmosphere. Details on houses and gourd-style houses are available on the association's website.
The birds like to live in large groups. Siegrist said in Brazil, they can see as many as a half-million purple martins in the Amazon rain forest. Researchers are able to catch some of the birds and place GPS backpacks on them to monitor their travels. The birds spend more of the year in Brazil than in the United States.
“They don’t spend much time (here) beyond their nesting season,” he said. However, in early fall, the birds start bathing in large roosting groups as they prepare for their migration. He invites people to visit Erie to see the large number of birds that gather before dusk in mid-July through mid-September. But he said their website shows roosting areas where people can watch them in many areas of the country.
Purple martin roosting flights:Purple martins perform nightly aerial acrobatics near South Pier roost
“Just all of the sudden they show up and fill the sky,” he said about the sunset shows. “It’s really amazing to witness.”He said even non-nature enthusiasts will be amazed at the spectacle.
The work that’s being done to study purple martins is important as they are trying to discover why the bird population is down about 30% over what it was 50 years ago. “There’s something going on,” he said about birds like martins and other swallows that can eat insects while they are flying. They are investigating loss of habitat, pollution and other environmental concerns for the loss of birds.
Do you favor Sunday hunting?:Bills on Sunday hunting, disabled first responders moves to full Pennsylvania Senate
“Purple martins eat a tremendous number of flying insects,” he said about their value to the ecosystem. When you factor in the reduction of the bird population,he said, “This species deserves to exist.”
He encourages people to watch the live stream of the nesting birds to see how fascinating these birds are to the world. He said with the eggs being ready to soon hatch people can watch the young birds grow and be ready to leave the nest over the coming weeks.
“These birds exist because of people caring," he said. "No other species has its fate intertwined with humans as purple martins do. And we have it in our power to ensure their future.”
Brian Whipkey is the Pennsylvania Outdoorcolumnist for Gannett. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Outdoors Newsletter emailon your website's homepage under your login name.
