Purple Martins

 

As a new birdwatcher, imagine the thrill of identifying a bird that I didn't recognize until recently.   This is rare for me.  

Yesterday I watched a video about identifying birds.  One of them looked to me like a crow, but we had already seen the crow.  Finally, they revealed it was a purple martin.   It didn't look purple to me really.  I know that some people put up purple martin houses and I've seen them, but never saw the bird.  I am aware that the purple martin houses look like apartment buildings for birds.  

So, having seen a purple martin on a video, my spidey senses were tingling.  And then...guess what?  I had the backdoor open, and I had put out some birdseed and cat food, when I noticed a bird that was walking up to the back steps.  He saw me, and this often causes feathered ones to flee.  But he continued to walk up to the back steps and I checked him out.  He looked a lot like a small crow, about half the size of a crow, but he seemed to have a purple glow.  He looked more delicate than a crow, too.  That just wasn't a crow.  I supposed that he was wondering about the cat food.  

I got out my birdy compendium, looked up purple martin and there he was.  The book described them as being 7.5" long, which surprised me because I expected them to give the size in centimeters, and then I wouldn't really know, since I don't speak centimeter.  The purple martin does live in this area.  According to my book they eat exclusively in flight and their diet is insects.  So why was he curious about the cat food?  Maybe he just wanted to see if there was a purple martin house on the back porch.  

                                           Purple Martin Digs

Also, the purple martin is a type of swallow.  It is the largest of the swallows.   I'm astonished with myself for figuring this all out.  

That was life in Paradise today.