What do Purple Martins eat?
Purple Martins are obligate aerial insectivores, which is a fancy way of saying they eat only flying insects, and they take them only on the wing, not off the ground. Martins eat beetles, flies, dragonflies, midges, mayflies, bees, stinkbugs, cicadas, flying ants, damselflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, and wasps. Martins are generalists, and do not specialize in taking just one or two types of insects, to the exclusion of others. Martins drink and bathe while skimming over the surfaces of bodies of water. Purple Martins do not eat huge quantities of mosquitoes, despite what some martin house manufacturers claim (this fraudulent claim is used to market their products). See Update issue 2(3), “The Relationship of Purple Martins to Mosquito Control”: http://www.purplemartin.org/update/MosCont.
Purple Martins are obligate aerial insectivores, which is a fancy way of saying they eat only flying insects, and they take them only on the wing, not off the ground. Martins eat beetles, flies, dragonflies, midges, mayflies, bees, stinkbugs, cicadas, flying ants, damselflies, butterflies, moths, grasshoppers, and wasps. Martins are generalists, and do not specialize in taking just one or two types of insects, to the exclusion of others. Martins drink and bathe while skimming over the surfaces of bodies of water. Purple Martins do not eat huge quantities of mosquitoes, despite what some martin house manufacturers claim (this fraudulent claim is used to market their products).
