The Purple Martin is the largest swallow found in North America. The adult has a slightly forked tail which aids it in flight, giving it speed and agility. When approaching its housing, the purple martin will dive from the sky at excellent speed with its wings tucked.
It takes two years for this species to reach its full adult breeding plumage and only then is it possible to, effectively, identify them. Adult males are entirely black with a glossy steel blue sheen even though adult females are dark on leading with some steel blue sheen and lighter under parts.
The eastern species of the purple martins nest exclusively, in man-created bird houses. It is the only species of bird totally dependent on humans for nest web sites. It is important to note that purple martin houses that are unmonitored usually grow to be breeding houses for starlings and sparrows—species that are a main reason for the declining of the martin population in North America. These species typically kill martins for their nest cavity. Since of the devastating impact that these intruders have on the martins, a lot of landlords trap these species to insure the survival of the martin colonies.
The breeding habitat of the purple martins is found across eastern North America. There are, also, some locations on the West Coast from Columbia to Mexico. This species, usually, breeds in colonies, usually multi-rooms for multi families situated in proximity to human housing. In the winter, they migrate to the Amazon basin extending into Ecuador.
Purple martins are aerial insectivores. They catch insects in the air. They are very agile and consume a variety of winged insects. Occasionally, they will come to ground level to eat insects. This makes them fantastic buddies of the American gardener. They, normally, fly very high and since of this, they are not considerably of a threat to mosquitoes.