Volunteers with Nature Nanaimo have invested hundreds of hours over the past two months creating replacement nest boxes to keep Western purple martins from dropping to near extinction like they did in the mid-1900s.
Western purple martins are North America's largest swallows. They nest in snags near fresh or salt water as well as harbour pilings and crevices in buildings 鈥� or rather they did before the introduction of Eastern starlings and house sparrows taking those spots.
"Swallows are really important in keeping insect populations down, just like bats and other insectivores, swallows are really important for that," said Staffan Lindgren, vice-president of Nature Nanaimo. "And they're also just nice to have around."
By the 1980s the species dwindled to fewer than 10 nesting pairs known throughout all of B.C. At that time, a conservation effort began at the Cowichan Bay estuary, creating nesting boxes that the purple martins could use. After seeing that the birds were using them, the program was expanded with the province putting out a contract to have 200 nest boxes built. Now the species lives exclusively in nest boxes throughout Vancouver Island and on the mainland.
In a , the government notes that "without human intervention, particularly the provision of artificial nest boxes, this species would probably have been lost to British Columbia some time ago."
Since then, the number of nest boxes have continued to climb, and the number of martins with them. By 2019, central Vancouver Island was host to 702 boxes. By this year that number grew to 831, with the program being spearheaded by by the Georgia Basin Ecological Assessment and Restoration Society.
Unfortunately, the artifical nests require replacement about every 20 years and some are going on 40. Again this fall, Nature Nanaimo joined the effort with funding from B.C. Nature and the B.C. Naturalists Foundation to assist the Georgia Basin society by building replacement boxes. Spearheading the grant application was Lindgren.
"We've been sort of involved with the purple martin nest box program in a roundabout way since some of our members are the primary drivers of this program, so we thought that it would be a good project to help out with that, because it's a pretty large program," he said.
Starting in October, half a dozen volunteers put in more than 300 combined hours to make more than 80 standard boxes, plus 15 separate boxes to fit the aesthetic design of Buttertubs Marsh. To keep out the starlings, each box needs a specially designed entrance hole.
"Because starlings have long legs they can only duck down so far鈥�" Lindgren said. "I've watched starlings try to get in and they just can't. If they duck down low enough they can't use their legs to get in, so they sort of just look in there and they leave."
Keeping out house sparrows, which don't have stalky legs, requires a separate solution 鈥� stuffing the entrance hole until martin nesting season begins.
To build a nest box, the Georgia Basin society has official instructions anyone can access at If someone does wish to install one, the society asks that they contact pmartins@island.net so the box can be monitored.
"One of the important things in terms of conservation is monitoring of the boxes to see how much they are utilized," Lindgren said. "It would be nice to get more involvement of young people but it seems like in Nanaimo it's mainly retired people that have limitations in terms of mobility and so on."
As to why he joined the effort to save the species, Lindgren said he's a "bird nerd."
"If you go to Buttertubs for example or out to 鈥� Saysutshun on the docks there are nest boxes there and you can hear the song of the purple martins. There's something special about that. It just makes you feel good."
