Mid-Air
Spring Comes on the Wings of Purple Martins
Amos, the owner of the Amish bird shop, stood outside near his purple martin house pole. His heavy work boots crunched on the icy ground.
“Purple martins only eat on the run,” he said. “There are a couple of them back now from the South. But the ground is still frozen with no insects in sight. So, you have to feed them.”
Spring comes to Buggy Land on the wings of purple martins, these sleek blue-black swallows migrating back from their wintering grounds in South America. By some uncanny navigating ability, the elders arrive first to nestle into the nesting boxes where they had been the previous year. The breeding pairs come next to start their own broods. A glance down the road finds every Amish garden adorned with a purple martin house—either a boxy triple-decker wooden apartment building with starling resistant holes, or a cluster of plastic gourd houses hanging from a pole.
Amos is equipped with both an apartment building and a few gourd houses dangling from the top of his pole. Two martins swooped back and forth around the houses, stopping to alight on the perch, then off again in search of food.
Centuries ago, martin houses were a common site. John James Audubon used to choose his lodgings for the night by the condition of martin houses. In 1831, he wrote, “Almost every country tavern has a martin box on the upper part of its sign-board; and I have observed that the handsomer the box, the better does the inn generally prove to be.”
The birds devour large quantities of grasshoppers, beetles, flies, and other airborne insects. They have a boisterous, up-beat song, and it’s fun to watch their swooping flight overhead. Purple martins have a symbiotic relationship with humans and depend on our hospitality. They will only nest in clusters, almost always in human-constructed houses. Early American ornithologists reported Indigenous people built purple martin houses, and in 1808 scientist Alexander Wilson reported hollowed-out gourds placed atop poles in Choctaw and Chickasaw settlements.
World War II brought pesticides that took care of insects. Power lawn mowers clipped the grass growing over victory gardens. Fresh vegetables were shipped from California into grocery stores throughout the country. More fruits and vegetables were canned and sold from grocery shelves until their expiration date. Besides, purple martins had turned into pests in South America where their excrement had piled up. And who wanted the job of cleaning out their messy nests every fall?
Apparently, the Amish don’t mind the mess. They take pride in having their bird houses spiffed up and ready for spring, overlooking their neatly tended gardens. Inside his shop, three of Amos’ sons were busy building purple martin houses, the corners square, the perches securely attached, the wood painted white. A teenager with straight blond hair, the bangs cut across his forehead with a clean swipe, pushed open the door and stood behind Amos. Behind the teenager came his brother, a ten-year-old, and behind him, a barefoot six-year old.
“What do you feed the martins? And how?” I asked.
“Crickets,” Amos replied.
Crickets, I thought. Those insects come to the surface around here in August, chirping from every corner of every barn or shed. How in the world would Amos find crickets at this time of year?
“We have to send away for the crickets,” Amos said. “Here, I’ll show you.”
I followed him into the shop where he took me into a backroom with a small gas-powered refrigerator.
“See, here they are.” Amos took out a small box filled with crickets. “You send for the crickets in the fall, and they hibernate for the winter. You keep them in the refrigerator. Not the freezer. I made that mistake once.”
Insectivores, purple martins eat bugs year-round, foraging in the air. They eat flying insects at altitudes higher than other swallows, sometimes from over 150 to 500 feet off the ground. They encounter prey, suddenly turning sideways or upwards. Then they speed up, flare their tails and come in for the kill. They feed only in the daytime, often in pairs. Rarely landing on the ground, they swoop down to pick up small bits of gravel to help them digest insect exoskeletons.
But even a three-day cold snap can kill a purple martin. Without flying insects, they can soon starve.
“But how do you feed the crickets to the martins?” I asked.
“With this,” Amos said, picking up a slingshot. He stepped out of the shop, his sons trailing after him.
Just then Mahlon--one of my other neighbors--pulled up to the hitching post in his buggy. He hopped out and wound the reins around the post. Mahlon, who is always in a hurry, stopped and stared at Amos who stood before his martin house, a cricket tucked into the pouch of his slingshot.
Amos held the frame steady with his left hand, pulling back the bands with his right. Whack. Up into the air flew the cricket. Down dove the purple martin, missing the insect by a fraction of an inch.
I looked at the disappointed Amos, thinking that he would just position another cricket into the pouch. Then I remembered that the Amish never waste a thing, so Amos dropped down to the ground, searching for the cricket, his hands sweeping out in front of him, his knees inching along the frozen earth.
His teenage son, then the ten-year old, then the six-year-old followed, all three on their knees, heads down, crawling along in hopes of finding the treasure. Next, Mahlon crouched down, his fingers sifting the stiff grass. Back and forth, the five Amish combed the ground.
I swept the yard with my eyes, slowly thinking of the interlocking cooperation and dependencies of nature. How we are all caught up in the drama of food chains and life cycles. How one species attracts and shelters another. How one organism dies and another one lives. How brutal, how joyous this can all be. Here we were, three adults and three children bowing down to the pull and tug of ecology, and the larger design of the universe.
“I’ve got him!” Amos called, holding the cricket up in his hand for all of us to see.
Amos placed the insect back into the slingshot pouch, then once again, stretched and released the bands. The cricket soared through the air toward the birdhouse, the martin doing his dance, swooping down, then turning up, flaring his tail, then picking off the prey mid-air.
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Crickets launched from slingshots! Purple Martins swooping to catch them in mid-air! I am awed and delighted. Love the photographs of the houses. I haven't seen any in our area. Will research. We do have tree swallows who like the bluebird houses. Happy Spring.
Mary, this is absolutely fabulous! Thank you so much for sharing your gifts with us!! LOVED it!