LIS: Restaurant For Birds: 2. Community Partnerships that Benefit Birds

Community Partnerships that Benefit Birds:

Purple Martin Natal Dispersal in the Northwest Corner

The Marvelwood School:

--- Aiden Cherniske

--- Sebastian Killin

--- Ashley Wilkins

--- Brennan Wilkins

--- Laurie Doss, Science Department Chair.

The source presentation deck of slides is available here,

if you click on this link: COA_PURPLE MARTIN MARVELWOOD 11/6/21 - Google Slides

and here: COA PUMA NORTHWEST CORNER BAND COLORS FALL 2021 - Google Slides

This presentation begins at the 27 minute mark on the video recording of this conference. COA's Birds and the Environment Science Conference - Online - YouTube

This presentation explores the history, management and expansion of Purple Martin (Progne subis) colonies in and near the town of Kent, CT starting in 2006. It focuses on the community partnerships formed with The Marvelwood School, Kent Land Trust, Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP), Purple Martin Conservation Association and the Connecticut Ornithological Association to both restore and monitor the movement of inland populations of purple martins. Two historical nesting sites were identified and efforts were first made to improve and expand housing opportunities in these areas first. Next, ideal habitat was identified near these historical sites and new housing was secured via grants and donations. Working with scientists from DEEP, our initial banding experiments utilizing silver federal bands, revealed that we were getting sub-adult birds returning to the different colonies we managed. In 2011, DEEP formally commenced a scientific study to determine the dispersal patterns of sub-adult purple martins in Connecticut. Our inland colonies were part of this natal dispersal project which involved using different color bands assigned to colony sites that were placed on nestlings (along with a federal band) when age appropriate. Some of the questions trying to be answered by the natal dispersal study include:

What is an optimal nesting site?
Why do martins use certain housing while avoiding others, even in ideal habitat?
What are the natal dispersal patterns of the subadults in CT.
Do coastal and inland martins disperse differently?

So far, there has been virtually no dispersal of inland banded nestlings returning as sub-adults to breed along the coast and vice versa? Why this is not happening, especially in such a small state as Connecticut is not fully known. Most of our inland birds are dispersing within a ten mile radius of the historic colonies. However, as housing opportunities begin to expand outside this radius, especially to the North, South and West of our inland colonies, others are detecting birds that were originally color banded by us in or near Kent. We also have several foreign recoveries in New York State

Over the years this collaboration has helped to elevate the species from their status of a Threatened Species in the state to that of Species of Special Concern. While the news about expanding inland (and coastal) populations of purple martins in the state is exciting, their conservation story is not yet finished. Purple Martins in Connecticut and in Eastern North American are entirely dependent on humans and artificial housing to breed. Current landlords are getting older and there is concern about who will manage these existing colonies in the future.