Purple martins colonize Texas every winter.
The ancient Caddo Indians along the Red River in East Texas would have looked to the sky during January, watching for purple martins returning to their villages.
Like other tribes, the Caddo would have strung hollowed-out gourds around their villages to offer the sleek, blue-black swallows nesting homes safe from predators. Purple martins would have returned the favor by devouring flying insects and chasing off crows trying to pillage stores of corn.
When European settlers displaced Indians with their own villages and farms, they adopted the tradition of hanging gourds to attract nesting martins. Craftsmen would later design wooden nest boxes containing multiple compartments to suit martin colonies.
But before people erected hanging gourds and nest boxes, purple martins found shelter in abandoned woodpecker tree holes and tree cavities. Once the birds began relying on nesting abodes supplied by people, they virtually abandoned their historic tree holes.
During December, the birds begin heading north from winter homes in Brazil and other parts of South America east of the Andes. Their journey traverses Central America up to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula and directly across the Gulf of Mexico to North America.
Some birds follow a route across the Caribbean Islands on the way to North America. Purple martins breeding west of the Rockies follow a route through Mexico.
They move quickly. The vanguard are adult males arriving in Texas during January, followed by females and yearling males in February. The young males will search for new or unoccupied martin houses to attract females for a nesting colony.
The females will select males for mating — they make the final decision about where to nest, regardless of sites staked out by males. They’ll usually select boxes where they nested the previous year. But not always.
They can be finicky about nest locations for reasons that elude human understanding. They may return to the same location year after year, only to abandon it another year.
Breeding pairs eventually take up communal residence in compartmentalized housing. They may use some compartments for roosting or as space for alternative nests should house sparrows invade their first nesting compartment.
Meanwhile, I’m watching for male purple martins to perch on the nesting gourds in my yard and later be joined by females in a nesting colony. But we’ve had no nesting colony since 2015. Maybe this year.