I find it fascinating that we, as people, often don’t consider ourselves part of nature. Somehow we are separate and different from nature, as if we are living out our lives on a different path from nature. Mother Nature is over there and we humans are over here.
But as a biologist I would argue just the opposite. Whether or not you realize it, we are completely and totally dependent upon nature, and much of what we do highly impacts nature. Even if we don’t realize it, many things we do can influence nature in small and large ways.
For example, in the early 1900s putting up a purple martin house became very fashionable. People would build their own unique martin house out of wood, sometimes resembling their own home, and put it up in their yards and farms. There were huge advertisement campaigns which extolled the virtues of attracting purple martins to your home. These ads said that martins would eat thousands of mosquitoes each day. Who wouldn’t like to have a mosquito eating machine flying around their home all the time? (By the way, it turns out that only 10 percent of their diet consists of mosquitoes.)
People responded by putting up thousands of martin houses. These multi-compartment homes popped up all across the U.S. They became so fashionable that companies started to manufacture martin houses. Attracting and watching martins became a national obsession.
It was so successful that all of these new homes actually changed the behavior of the entire species. By the mid 1900s it was estimated that the entire population of purple martins in the eastern half of the country, which for thousands or perhaps millions of years had nested in natural tree cavities, switched over to man-made nesting cavities.
I am sure many of the readers of this column can remember their parents or grandparents who had martin houses and can attest to how common it was to put up martin houses. Then something happened. I am not sure if it was World War II or the economy or just what changed, but the fashion winds started to blow a different direction and putting up martin houses suddenly stopped.
Neglected martin houses were taken over by house sparrows, and also European starlings, which at the time were expanding their range all across the U.S. Wooden martin houses started to rot and fall apart and people lost interest in the natural insect controller. Purple martins were no longer fashionable. The overall population of martins dropped dramatically. We had highly modified the martins’ behavior without really knowing it.
Numbers remain low
Fast forward to the present day and not much has changed. Martin numbers are still low and they are still nesting in man-made nesting cavities. In fact, it is estimated that the entire population of purple martins in the eastern half of the country only nests in man-made cavities. They no longer nest in tree cavities as they did in the past. Apparently there are some martins in the western half of the country that still nest in natural cavities, but that is about it.
About 10 years ago I fixed up an old damaged metal martin house that someone was throwing out and I installed it at my lake cabin. I mounted it at the end of our dock on a tall telescoping pole. That spring, to my astonishment, several pair of martins showed up and started to construct their nests and lay eggs. I was thrilled. Three families called the end of my dock home. They raised their babies and all was right with the world.
Once again, fast forward and I now have new plastic gourd shaped nesting cavities on a rack system that I can easily lower and maintain the house with a rope. I have put up two of these for a total of 16 homes and they are filled with martins. It only takes me a few minutes each year to put up the houses and clean them out at the end of summer and I get the enjoyment of watching and hearing their cheerful call nearly every day.
I hope that perhaps we as people understand that not only are we a big part of nature, but everything we do, all of our actions, have an impact on nature, even if you don’t see it immediately. And maybe we can help bring back a species such as the purple martin.
Until next time …
Stan Tekiela, Victoria, is an author-naturalist and wildlife photographer. He travels the U.S. to study and photograph wildlife. You can follow him on twitter.com and facebook.com or visit his website at www.naturesmart.com. His column appears regularly in the Advocate.