An adult male Purple Martin in Escanaba’s Ludington Park, one of only two sites in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where this species still persists. Conservation efforts have recovered this local population from one breeding pair that produced six chicks in 2015, to over 40 pairs producing over 100 chicks in 2024.
Saving Purple Martins in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
By Joe Kaplan – Common Coast Research & Conservation
The Purple Martin, North America’s largest swallow, is familiar to many owing to the species’ long association with humans. Beginning with Native Americans who hung hollowed gourds in their villages to attract the striking insectivore, this practice has continued into the present with “landlords” who provide specialized houses to welcome back martins from winters in the Amazon Basin. This stewardship has proved so successful that in the eastern United States martins are now entirely dependent on human hosts for nest boxes; only in western US mountains and deserts does the species still utilize hollow trees and Saguaro Cactus for some of its nesting.
Early Michigan ornithologists reported that the Purple Martin was “a familiar bird in nearly every city and village of the state, nesting about the cornices of city blocks, or in boxes or bird houses especially provided for it” (Michigan Bird Life, Barrows 1912). But in the Upper Midwest martins experienced dramatic population declines over the past half century, including a dire 95% range retraction in the Upper Peninsula since the 1990s (Michigan Breeding Bird Atlas II, Chartier et al. 2011). The primary cause for this decline is believed related to pesticide use, habitat degradation, and interference from non-native European Starlings and House Sparrows; the two species, both shortsightedly introduced to North America in the 19th Century, are extremely aggressive competitors with native cavity-nesting birds, and have had a particularly negative impact upon Purple Martins and Eastern Bluebirds.
Consequently, the formerly common spring rite of welcoming home martins is now a nearly forgotten legacy haunting the dilapidated handcrafted houses in yards, farms, and camps across the Upper Peninsula. Today the only known active UP colonies of this once-abundant resident are here in Escanaba’s Ludington Park and on a private farm in Menominee County. But it is not too late for the species’ future in the Peninsula. Since 2012 a partnership between Common Coast Research & Conservation, the City of Escanaba and Wildlife Unlimited of Delta County has undertaken measures to conserve martins in Ludington Park. These efforts, which have included installing new starling-proof houses attached to a pulley system allowing for more efficient monitoring, have resulted in a rebound from a low of just one pair in 2015 to 40-50 breeding pairs currently. This growth will hopefully ensure that Escanaba becomes a “source” population for the future expansion of martin colonies repopulating the UP.
The current Delta County recovery would not have been possible without the foresight of Benjamin Desilets, Escanaba’s longtime City Carpenter. Near the end of his career, and in response to observations of declining Purple Martin numbers, Mr. Desilets designed and built a large 83-unit martin “apartment” modeled Escanaba’s iconic Harbor Tower constructed in 1969. According to Donna Smith, Mr. Desilets’ daughter, his entire family was involved in the construction and maintenance of this and other martin houses (which resembled little churches) until her father retired from city service in the mid-1970s. Mr. Desilets’ unique apartment continued to be maintained by Public Works, where it sheltered generations of martins on Sand Point for over 40 years, until in 2015 its deteriorated condition finally necessitated replacement with a new style of houses called a Troyer-14 named after it’s Amish inventor, the design incorporate modern research findings to benefit martins. It is a legacy of which Escanaba should be proud, as many Purple Martin enthusiasts are now viewing the city’s recent success with the species as a blueprint for similar conservations efforts across the UP and beyond.
City carpenter Benjamin Desilets designed and built this large 83-unit Purple Martin “apartment” modeled Escanaba’s iconic Harbor Tower constructed in 1969 and used until 2015 until replaced with houses that can repel the introduced starling – a nest competitor.
