Purple Martin
Progne subis · Swallows & Martins
Purple Martin at the nest box
Staten Island, 5 July 2026
A Purple Martin calling from the threshold of a proper martin house on Staten Island, crescent-shaped entrance holes and all, with a neighbour visible in the next compartment. Martins are colonial nesters of open country near water, and in the East they live almost entirely in houses like this one.
They are famously site-faithful: the same colony, and often the same individual birds, return to a house year after year, which is why active martin housing tends to accumulate a following of dedicated landlords who track return dates each spring. The whole eastern population winters in the Amazon basin.
Purple Martin
Staten Island, 5 July 2026
A Purple Martin at a colony on Staten Island in July, the largest swallow in North America and, east of the Rockies, a bird that nests almost entirely in housing put up for it. This colony lives in a martin house on a pole beside the marsh.
Glossy blue-black all over on an adult male; females and young birds are duller, with a pale grey collar and belly. The dependency on people goes back centuries: Native American communities were hanging hollow gourds for martins long before European settlement, and the birds seem to have shifted away from natural tree cavities as a result.
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