There was a great turnout on the NSC grounds July 9 and 16 with a total of some 100 members of the public watching, interacting and some holding purple martin chicks. 236 chicks were banded there.
Some 500 purple martins are housed in “condos” built and maintained by Peter Huszcz, known as NSC’s “Purple Martin Man.” The banding of the rest of some 30 martins will happen soon one quiet afternoon.
There are a number of interesting CBC features on the Purple Martin. You can click here to run the search.
See photos of this year’s event here.
For more background, information and links to the Ottawa Citizen article and to a YouTube video on Peter and his martins, please visit our Purple Martin page.