Purple Martin!

I get a lot of birds in my backyard, but no birds get me more excited than Purple Martins! I was buttering my toast this morning and thought I could hear a Purple Martin chirping but dismissed it as a probable House Finch. Then a few seconds later I heard a definitive Purple Martin song. Toast forgotten, I grabbed my binoculars and camera and ran to the deck and there he was! A beautiful male Purple Martin!

Every year I fill my gourds with a nice bedding of white pine needles and hoist the rack in another desperate attempt to attract these beautiful birds to my backyard. They nested here only once about 7 years ago and the eggs weren't viable, so no nesting colony was ever established.

This adult male checked out all the gourds -- probably to see if there were any females hiding inside.

He perched on the top and checked out the decoy, obviously dismissing that guy as no competition!

Mr. Robin wishes he could fly like that!

Nobody here.......

Nobody here either........

After about 5 minutes of flying around and checking out the gourds, this martin flew north, probably in search of a better neighborhood. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will find an unattached female martin somewhere and bring her back to my place, since he knows there are plenty of nesting sites available!