Scott Whitby, 2023
Purple Martins leave their people every year to come here. One comes early then tells the others all is good, so they say. Maybe that one just left early or flies faster? They are not purple.
I wonder if those people they left are sad when they leave there like I am when they go back and do they think about them while they are away...and worry? Do they know they only nest in a certain size hole?
...and that the hole must be Purple Martin-sized. They will not use a bluebird or sparrow-sized hole, only a Purple Martin-sized one. No other-sized hole will do. It has to be a just right-sized hole or it will not work. At all.
Birdwatchers talk about their wingspan, the widest of the swallows. I like their voices better. They sound lost and worried asking each other "what'llwedooo? kikikik.". At least that's what I hear.
I'd like to talk to their other people about how they leave us all at once. How they meet all the other Martins and spend the night in the same tree. Then they come home with their babies, from across an ocean basically. I bet they know that.
Does one Martin get back first and give the ok for the others? Are they purple when they get home? Do their other people wonder about us? We share those Martins. I bet they think so too.
I think those Purple Martins like those other people. I think we would like them too. And I think they'd like us. I think the Purple Martins want them to know they leave there only because we have better holes. Otherwise they'd stay...but they are not purple.
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