Hoping that Purple Martins would nest at the Lake City Treatment Wetlands, Alachua Audubon and Four Rivers Audubon teamed up in 2018 and purchased and installed an eight-gourd nesting system. The Purple Martins promptly arrived, moved in, and raised young in all eight gourds. Our two Audubon chapters expanded the housing complex by installing a larger, 12-gourd system in 2019 and another one in 2021.
In 2024, an 8-gourd system was installed at Prairie Creek Preserve and a 6-gourd system (donated by Bubba and Ingrid Scales) was installed at Orange Lake Overlook. Both sites are owned and managed by Alachua Conservation Trust.
The Purple Martin Conservation Association recommends lowering the gourds during the nesting season to monitor the status of the nests and to detect any problems that might arise. On May 2, 2023, the nesting gourds at Lake City Wetlands were checked and contained 40 adults, 139 eggs and 32 hatchlings, surpassing the 2022 season when 31 gourds contained a total of 114 eggs and 25 hatchlings. In 2024, over 150 martins were fledged from gourds at Lake City Wetlands.
How exciting to know that even with an expected level of predation and mortality, this colony of stunning, vivacious, and aerobatic swallows will likely fledge over 100 Purple Martins from this Audubon-generated bird conservation project. (Photos by Tedd Greenwald)
In 2023, an 8-gourd nesting system that had been installed a couple of years ago at Sweetwater Wetlands Park was finally occupied by Purple Martins. On May 5, three nests containing four eggs and 10 hatchlings were discovered. A second system was added and both were subsequently fully occupied. A third system will be installed there in 2025.
AAS volunteers Winnie Lante and Rick Williams have researched and ordered several of the systems, organized and installed the arrays, and engineered solutions to make the systems safer and more functional. Tedd Greenwald and Mary Ellen Flowers have helped with installations and checking the nest boxes for nests, eggs and hatchlings.
Gourd installation photos from Lake City Wetlands in 2018 below.
