This seems like a good time to mention the scout arrival study which has been taking place for a number of years now by the PMCA - it’s not only a place to report your colony arrival dates, it’s a place to research arrival and landlord history in your area.
Dates are online going back to 1998. You can start at any point and then use the sort feature to give you the results you are interested in. For instance, click on your city, and view all arrival dates of both adult and subadult martins, from 1998 to the present. Or click on our province, Ontario and see all those who have reported in the entire province.
Or click on your name, or a landlord name you would like to view arrival history for – and all their reports will be pulled up. You’ll get more results via city search, as people don’t always use their full name each year – might be John Doe, John Smith, etc. You can sort by date, too – this will go by year, not arrival date though.
It’s interesting to look at the date range of reports for one location over the years. This should help anxious folks or newbies realize that the migration window is a wide one – arrivals of adult birds can last into June, even in some southern states on occasion. Subadult arrivals really don’t get rolling until March, and also continue into late June.
To view just this year’s results to date, the link will show the North
America arrival map. Click on any province to view this year’s reports. The map will turn purple as the martins head north with some yellow to show the sub-adult move.
Get excited! Report your first martin arrival…..
Scout Report Check out the PMCA website.
Scout Report Check out the Purple Martin Society website