SEQUIM — Sequim High School agriculture students recently wrapped up three weeks of building 14 Purple Martin nesting boxes by turning them over to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife for placement in suitable habitat.
“It was really fun,” student Joanna Morales said.
Fifty-two students in four classes worked on the two-holed tubular nesting boxes, each of which have the potential to host two pairs of Purple Martins and their three to six eggs.
“They do a segment about fish and wildlife in the class,” agriculture science teacher Bill McFarlen said. “This was a nice way to round things up.”
He said that the students split up into stations, “I gave them job descriptions, and they took off.”
The boxes were made from 6-inch PVC pipe and 1.5-inch PVC pipe, cedar boards, wire and plywood for the back, McFarlen said.
Shelly Ament, wildlife biologist with Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, said the design plan given to McFarlen for the students to build the boxes was given to WDFW by Ken Wiersma and Dow Lambert of the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society (OPAS) in March 2021.
OPAS has been working to increase Purple Martin nesting habitat since the 1990s, according to the group’s website at olympicpeninsulaaudubon.org.
Ament said the box is “durable, lightweight and easy to hang.”
Student Willow Yager explained that the wires on the top of the nesting box are so eagles can’t stand on it and get the hatchlings.
“It was difficult because the wires won’t always go in, so we had to hammer it down,” she said.
“If you put your mind to it, you can do anything,” Yager added.
Purple Martins are the largest swallow in North America and “eat 2,000 mosquitoes a day,” McFarlen said. They spend half the year in South America and half in North America.
According to the OPAS website, “Records of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) reveal documented nesting colonies of Purple Martins in Clallam County from the 1920s.
There were small colonies under the eaves of the Sol Duc Hot Springs lodge and in the County Courthouse in Port Angeles as late as the 1930s.
“Since that time, introduction of non-native, cavity-nesting birds, such as the European Starling and the House Sparrow, have taken many of the natural- and human-made cavities found over land sites and forced the Purple Martins to move their nests over water.”
This resulted in the decreased presence of the birds, according to birding experts.
Ament said that Bill Montgomery, WDFW Region 6’s hunter education and volunteer coordinator, contacted McFarlen at the school.
“I thought it would be a good opportunity for the kids to give back,” McFarlen said.
He said this is the first time the school has taken on such a project.
Ament said that McFarlen has the materials for three-hole boxes to be completed later.
Money to purchase materials came from Watchable Wildlife funding at WDFW, Ament said; the funding is generated from the eagle license plate.
“We are very grateful to the Audubon for all the work they do,” said Ament, referring to long-term cooperation between WDFW and OPAS to increase Purple Martin presence in the area.
“We have a wonderful partnership with Audubon, and now with the students, too.”
To learn more about OPAS’s efforts in Clallam County, visit olympicpeninsulaaudubon.org/purple-martin-nest-box-project.
For more information about wildlife background plates that fund projects such as these and others to help to the wildlife of Washington state, visit wdfw.wa.gov/licenses/license-plates.
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Emily Matthiessen is a reporter with the Olympic Peninsula News Group, which is composed of Sound Publishing newspapers Peninsula Daily News, Sequim Gazette and Forks Forum. Reach her at emily.matthiessen@sequimgazette.com.
