Purple Martins

Three Rivers Park District and the Purple Martin Conservation group maintain multiple houses for Purple Martin breeding. In French Park (Plymouth, MN) the Purple Martin house is suspended by cables. While they were lowering it to the ground in June 2012 to collect data, the cable broke sending the house and all its babies crashing to the ground. Madeline Link of the Three Rivers Park District brought 32 babies ranging in age from 2 days to almost fledged to avian rehabilitator Terry’s house for care. During the next two weeks Madeline replaced the nestlings in other existing martin houses – luckily the parents didn’t mind and took care of the new additions to their family. The Purple Martin Conservation group carefully maintains their records, so they were able to find appropriate nests to introduce the babies into with “siblings” the same age. A new house was built in the location of the fallen one and the adult Purple Martins began laying new clutches of eggs. The groups band all the babies just before they fledge the nest with both a state and federal bird band for identification.