How Do You Use Pine Straw For Purple Martin Nesting Houses?
To enjoy an active purple martin colony, individuals must take a vigorous approach in managing and maintaining the martins’ housing environment. This may include providing clean housing and supplemental food, controlling predators and making available proper nesting materials, including pine straw, also known as pine needles. Purple martins, the largest member of the swallow family in North America, spend their nonbreeding season in Brazil, then migrate to North America to nest. These beautiful, clean, interesting birds have bubbly personalities and a distinctive, pleasant song, explaining why more than one million people in North America (referred to as landlords) provide for their housing. Another reason for their popularity is that they are known to eat their weight in flying insects every day. Purple martins are very friendly toward humans; they actually seek out sites where there is abundant human activity. Birds living east of the Rockies only live in human-supplied housing. They
