Imagine going on vacation to Brazil and then coming home to find your house gone. That’s what the purple martin colony may face next year when the birds return to Tacoma after a long journey from South America.
Hopefully, they will soon see their living boxes moved 500 feet away.
The relocation of personnel from the Department of Natural Resources, Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium, Northwest Trek Wildlife Park and the Community of Healthy Bay earlier this month was necessitated by the removal of 1,200 pilings just offshore from Tacoma’s Dickman Mill Park.
A male purple martin flies over Dickman Mill Park in this file photo. Zach Hawn/Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
Bird boxes attached to some pilings that last week began to disappear from the waters of Puget Sound.
The bluebirds (their feathers can be purple in the right light) spend the summer in nest boxes at Dickman Mill, Titlow Beach and Chambers Bay, according to zoo conservation coordinator Zach Hawn. Tacoma is home to an estimated 16 percent of the state’s 600 purple-martin populations.
The birds, the largest mosquito in North America, spend the spring and summer in Washington and the rest of the year in Brazil – a journey of 4,000-6,000 miles. While here, insectivores and birdwatchers admire their games and bird songs.
“They look like sci-fi lasers and clicks and loud metal noises,” Hawn said. “They’re just brave… the way they can attack starlings or sparrows and protect their nest box.”
Removal of Piling
The pills that once supported Dickman Mill were dipped in creosote, a wood preservative linked to cancer. The site is one of DNR’s “Filthy Four,” where funding approved by the State Legislature in 2023 is allowing for their removal. With those pins go to the bird’s house.
But not for long.
All 18 houses and a few others will be put back on stilts in a swampy area to the southeast of their former location. It’s close enough that purple martins should find them easily, Hawn said. Bird watchers and passers-by will be able to get a closer look from the pier leading to the concrete remains of the mill.
About 1,200 dirty creosote pilings remain in the water after being abandoned for decades since Dickman Mill, one of Tacoma’s pioneers, put them there in the 1890s. Cheyenne Boone/Cheyenne Boone/The News Tribune
Bird watcher
Hawn, 32, has been a bird watcher since the age of 15. Now, he oversees a community observation program where volunteers gather information about the local purple martin, including their behavior.
The first birds to arrive, called scouts, sing loudly to show their fellow martins where they should land.
These birds need human intervention to thrive, according to the state Department of Fish and Forestry, which lists purple martins as a species in high conservation need.
Female and male purple martins outside planter boxes at Titlow Park in Tacoma. Zach Hawn/Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium
Decline
Purple martin numbers began to decline in the Pacific Northwest in the 1930s. That’s when enough logs were removed from large trees that provided nesting holes for birds, according to Metro Parks Tacoma. Non-native birds such as house sparrows and starlings competed with the purple martin for resources and nests.
Purple martins nest like colonies, and man-made boxes help maintain their numbers, according to Metro Parks. Birds like to live together without getting too close to each other. Otherwise, their bickering can become, “a soap opera for The Voice,” according to Hawn.
“To me, (they’re) just part of the landscape and the views of the Pacific Northwest waterfronts,” he said.
Purple martins outside their nesting boxes at Dickman Mill Park. The boxes have just been removed before the pilings are taken out of the water. These birds are on their wintering grounds in Brazil. Zach Hawn/Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium