Purple Martins' Habitat

The purple martin, also known as Progne subis, is a swallow. It is the largest swallow in North America. The male purple martin has a solid purple-blue color while females are duller in color with light gray bellies and brown-gray breasts. Their napes and foreheads are also gray. They often nesting in backyards.

  1. Favored Areas for Habitat

    • Purple martins like open areas with lakes and ponds nearby because it not only hunts in flight, it drinks in flight, too. It scoops water into its lower bill as it flies over the surface of water. If the water is near humans, so much the better because the martin knows we provide birdhouses for nesting. Backyard homes should be at least 30 feet from human structures and as far as possible from trees--at least 40 feet from the nearest one. Houses for purple martins should be about one story off the ground.

    Range

    • The purple martin migrates great distances, flying to South America for the winter. They range east of the Andes, primarily in Brazil's Amazon River basin. After they have migrated back to North America in the spring for the breeding season, the purple martins can be found in deserts, in areas of the Northwest, much of the Midwest and, especially, in the Eastern United States. You can also find purple martins in Mexico and Canada.

    Nesting in General

    • Purple martins like to nest in tree cavities or holes in cactus. Man-made birdhouses have been adopted by purple martins. A pair will build a nest within such a house, using leaves, grass, stems and twigs, adding mud along the bottom of the house entrance. Besides natural and man-made cavities, purple martins nest in crevices found in buildings or cliffs.

    Nesting in the West

    • In the West, mated purple martin like traditional nests such as abandoned woodpecker holes, dead or burned trees and cactus. In the Northwest, the birds are starting to use man-made nests, including boxes and hollowed gourds. A mated pair likes to live privately in a single nesting box, awaiting the hatching of the rest of the family. The western purple martins prefer their man-made nesting boxes to be over water.

    Nesting in the East

    • In the East, purple martins are well adapted to man-made nesting boxes. Not only will they live alone, they also will live in a subdivided nesting box. For more a century, almost all purple martins in eastern North America have used man-made nesting boxes for homes. Since the birds like to return to the same breeding grounds every year, the backyard habitat provided needs to be properly managed or the birds will go elsewhere.

    Historic Proximity to Man

    • Humans have supplied nesting boxes in some form or another since before European colonization. Hollowed gourds were hung in many American Indian communities to provide homes for the martins. In return, purple martins eat a lot of bugs. They exclusively feed on insects, usually feeding on the wing. Now that a lot of natural areas have been altered by human activity, providing purple martin housing is more important than ever.

    Decreasing Numbers

    • In many Western areas of the United States, the purple martin population has declined as house sparrows and European starlings have infringed on their habitat. Both these birds are also cavity nesters who vie for available nesting sites. Conservation efforts to reserve nesting boxes for purple martins include closing up vacant nesting boxes until the martins arrive to claim them and creating nesting boxes that resist occupancy by starlings and house sparrows.