Purple martins are more complex than you think

For some time now, I thought it would be great to have a purple martin house in the back yard, especially since the mosquitoes made going outside at night risky last summer. As usual, I did things in reverse order. First thing I did was buy a martin house and then try to figure out what I needed to do with it.

Little did I realize I was entering into a complex area of bird lore. I clicked on the Internet and was immediately greeted with the helpful hints for Martin landlords from the PMCA. I have since found out those initials stand for the Purple Martin Conservation Association headquartered in Pennsylvania. They have issued all sorts of memorandums for would-be Purple Martin housing, and that was two pages long with small print.

Included in the article was "Does Your Yard meet Habitat Requirements?"

Not knowing the answer to that question, all I could do was guess that the starlings and sparrows seem to be at home and are quite happy to leave their droppings on top of my vehicles.

The PMCA even included a map showing when the Purple Martins should arrive in the area. Our date appears to be between March 1 and March 15.

The house has to have an elevation between 12 and 20 feet, sitting on a long pole of some sort.

The particular model I purchased suggested that I sink some plastic pipe in the ground and then slide this aluminum pole in the pipe.

My problem was, while digging the hole for the plastic pipe, I hit rock and, as usual, thinking I could get by, I stuck the pole with the birdhouse in the plastic pipe only to go out the next day and find it listing about 30 degrees to the south. This caused me to go dig another hole, this time deeper in ensure that the pole and the house would remain in an upright position.

These birds are fiendishly clever. Before they establish a new settlement, they send scouts to decide if this area is right or not.

My next worry is that my so-called housing standards won't meet the building codes for the Purple Martin Conservation Association. I can imagine the scouts arriving and taking the message back to the flock, "I'm not sure we want to land there. The house looks a little shaky, and I'm not sure everything meets our high standards."

In the fine print of my instructions, it talks about preventing the other bird species from nesting in my high-dollar housing, and how tree swallows, wrens, and flycatchers are federally protected and may not be trapped.

Growing up on the farm, I don't remember life being this complicated. The birds made nests with bits of twigs in trees or the barn. Right now, we are in the waiting mode with everything in readiness to see if we can pass inspection of the purple martin scouts.