Purple Martin

Progne subis Apr–Aug

With iridescent dark blue feathers, the male is easily distinguished from the female, which has a more understated coloring of brown above and white below. When encountering a colony, the noise will announce their presence before you see them. These swallows are very vocal with a variety of chirps and burbling rattle-like calls. They have a high degree of site fidelity, meaning they come back to the same favorable nesting area year after year. These swallows can be found nesting at Jacob's Point Preserve in Warren. There is a walking trail directly off the bike path on the right as you head towards Bristol, which leads to a structure that looks like a steel tree sprouting white plastic gourds in all directions. Set up in 2017 by the Warren Land Trust, with support from the Warren Conservation Commission, this site provides a very active nesting area for the swallows.

Birds east of the Rocky Mountains rely on these artificial housing structures and nest boxes due to habitat loss and competition from nonnative species, such as starlings and sparrows. As cavity nesters, the Purple Martin prefers using existing hollowed areas made by woodpeckers, but since dead trees are often eliminated from forests, natural nesting sites have become scarce.