R. R. Branstrom | Daily Press After removing a nest, Common Coast Research and Conservation’s Joe Kaplan looks inside a purple martin house following the seasonal departure of its feathered residents.

ESCANABA — Maintaining purple martin houses can be messy business in the fall — it certainly was at Sand Point in early October.

Seven wooden bird boxes, each with 14 dwelling units, sit atop posts around Escanaba’s Ludington Park. The project to provide accessible housing for purple martins at the northern edge of their range is a collaboration between the City of Escanaba, Wildlife Unlimited, and Common Coast Research and Conservation — the latter of which was formed in 2010 to maximize and enhance habitats for Great Lakes migratory birds. Prior to that, there had been some purple martin houses in Esky, but they were not ideal for the climate.

Purple martin (Progne subis) is a large species of swallow; its adult males are bluish-black, while the females are grayer with purple on their heads and backs. They almost exclusively make their homes and raise young in artificial abodes. The birds are “cavity nesters” — meaning that they use enclosed dwellings rather that open nests — but the natural habitats of this type, like tree hollows, are often dominated by the more aggressive European starling. It’s said that centuries ago, Native Americans created cavities for martins in hollowed-out gourds. Today, special starling-resistant entry holes have been designed for purple martin birdhouses; some are even patented.

The martin boxes currently in Ludington Park are made of wood. Before Common Coast Research and Conservation came onto the scene, there were some plastic boxes, aluminum ones, and an old wooden one that was designed to resemble Harbor Tower.

After overwintering in or around the Amazon Basin, purple martins return to the area where they hatched to brood in the spring — about a five-thousand-mile journey.

Common Coast founder Joe Kaplan explained that since the Upper Peninsula nesting sites are at the northern edge of the birds’ range and the spring season in the region can get awfully cold, plastic houses that may be sufficient shelter for purple martins in more southerly states don’t offer the insulation that wooden boxes can provide. As part of the organization’s Escanaba Migratory Bird Enhancement Initiative, Common Coast sought to replace the plastic and aluminum boxes and the rotting Harbor Tower homage — with less-than-ideal wedge-shaped cavities — that had been in Ludington Park since the 1970s.

“There was always a tradition,” said Kaplan. “Escanaba is one of the few municipalities that maintains purple martin boxes. … Martins used to be super common in the U.P., and starting in about the early ’90s, the population just crashed.”

Wildlife Unlimited of Delta County constructed and donated new, hardy wooden boxes to go atop poles that had been built by Northern Machine and installed by the City of Escanaba’s Public Works department. A seventh is new to this year.

Since martins try to return to a nesting area near those that they’re familiar with, trying to establish or build back up a colony can be a difficult task. But Kaplan reported that he’s successfully attracted birds to new houses by playing a recording of the male martin’s “dawn song.”

In 2015, the year the Harbor Tower-looking box was replaced, Escanaba only had three purple martins, Kaplan said — one breeding pair and a female with a damaged leg. In 2018, six pairs successfully fledged 29 young, according to a Common Coast report. Now, almost all of the cavities are occupied, and about 100 adults each year make Escanaba their home.

About midway through the season, usually in early July, Common Coast takes a nest inventory, counting the number of eggs and chicks. In the fall, after the birds have flown south, volunteers return to see if any failed eggs remain and to clean out the cavities.

On Oct. 10, Kaplan and Mike Segorski met in Ludington Park to complete the task. After lowering the boxes one by one down their poles with winches, Kaplan, with gloved hands, climbed a ladder, removed the nests, and explained the importance of keeping the houses tidy.

“They fledge about August 1. And if you don’t clean out the boxes, there’ll be adult fleas waiting for them when they come back in April. Those fleas live all winter long in the nest in all the detritus and stuff; it’s so disgusting. And there’s sometimes hundreds of them.”

He swept the old nests and debris into a five-gallon bucket. Sure enough, some of the boxes were crawling with fleas.

“They’re pretty prolific,” Segorski remarked.

Kaplan joked about how people always say that after a nuclear war, there’ll be rats and cockroaches, but — “It’ll be fleas.”

And with that, he climbed the ladder again, this time with a butane torch, and burned away the dust and pests from inside the cavities. Next, a small leafblower attacked what was left.

The count taken in July had shown that the maximum number of purple martin fledglings from Escanaba this season could potentially be about 109. But several unhatched eggs were found, in addition to the remains of at least one juvenile bird.

At press time, the final exact count of this year’s successful fledglings was not known, but it is safe to say that it is roughly on par with the last couple years — Common Coast reported numbers in the recent past of 40 to 50 breeding pairs producing between 50 and 100 young.

When purple martins return in the spring, they will find a bed of pine needles in each of the 98 boxes in Escanaba. Most will likely be returning, but it’s very possible some new birds with roots in nearby places like Menominee or Wisconsin may be recruited to settle in. Perhaps some Escanaba natives will fly a little farther and inhabit a new residence in Munising.

Atop the base of pine needles in the cavities designed specifically for them, purple martins will build their nests of leaves and twigs, and the cycle will begin again.