John Pepin, Michigan Department of Natural Resources

With showers threatening, I headed south along the state highway, following the old railroad grade that cut through the swamps.

I was on my way to meet a good friend that I hadn’t seen in quite a while. We would have a chance to shoot the bull and finally exchange our Christmas presents.

Yeah, I know. It’s June.

But things like that don’t matter when you are really friends with someone.

Life gets in the way of just about everything, even Christmas.

It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags.

My friend lives in a home he built recently, nestled among the trees in a residential neighborhood, perched up on a hill above Lake Michigan.

Traditionally, we exchange music at Christmas and birthdays. I also brought him one of our offshoot Aloe vera plants and a couple of brook trout I caught a couple days beforehand.

He suggested he might smoke them.

I wondered how he planned to get them lit.

To each, his own.

We sat in soft, comfortable chairs in his living room and talked about the new shed he’d built for his yard equipment, music, books, old railroads – things we like.

I asked him whether he might like to go to Ludington Park with me in Escanaba for my annual pilgrimage. I go there to check on one of the only remaining colonies of purple martins existing in the Upper Peninsula.

When I was growing up, our next-door neighbor had one of those round metal martin apartment houses on top of a steel pole in her backyard.

She had tree swallows that had nested in it, but she also had purple martins. I can’t recall whether she had both species simultaneously.

American Indians were the first to provide purple martins with homes as they found the birds would nest in gourds they had hung.

Today, purple martins rely almost entirely on plastic gourds and birdhouses erected by humans to nest in. In southeastern Arizona, purple martins nest in woodpecker holes in saguaro cactus.

Like tree swallows, and other species in the same family, purple martins are birds of the skies where they fly gracefully chasing dragonflies and other bugs to eat.

According to the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Michigan published in 1991, purple martins were determined to be possible, probable or confirmed breeders in 22% of the Upper Peninsula’s 610 townships.

Only Keweenaw County, including Isle Royale, had no records, with Baraga County reporting possible breeding. The region’s remaining 13 counties had confirmed nesting.

Sensitive to cold, wet weather, an early April blizzard in 1982, followed by cold temperatures, negatively affected purple martin colonies across the Eastern U.S., according to the atlas.

Martins arrive from South American wintering grounds around the middle of April.

They nest in provided nest cavities in open or semi-open areas, usually near water, which makes the beautiful grounds of Ludington Park, along the shores of Lake Michigan a perfect place for the birds.

When the atlas of breeding birds was updated in 2013, the number of places purple martins were known to be possible, probable or confirmed to be breeding had shrunk dramatically.

According to the atlas, the decline of martins in the state began in the 1960s, with the birds remaining much more common in the Lower Peninsula.

In that 2013 update, nesting was confirmed only in Chippewa, Delta and Menominee counties. Additional probable breeding was reported on Isle Royale and possible breeding was listed for Mackinac County.

The remaining 10 counties in the U.P. had no current nesting activity.

Beyond cold weather, purple martins compete – often unsuccessfully – with European starlings and house sparrows, two invasive species from Great Britain.

They will kill martin young and nest in martin houses.

Despite this, martins will tolerate these competitors to some extent. To decrease house sparrow and starling nest competition, martin house owners often install metal plates with crescent-shaped entry holes.

Starlings and house sparrows can easily fit through the round, rather large, birdhouse entries on traditional purple martin houses. The newer, modified metal plates are available from the Purple Martin Conservation Association and elsewhere.

Martin birdhouses should be cleaned out each autumn. During nesting season, nests of starlings and house sparrows should be removed.

There are hundreds of purple martin bird houses on poles in the yards of people across the U.P., maybe even thousands. But many of them either don’t offer modified entry holes or haven’t been cleaned out in years, or both.

Keeping martin houses clean, modifying birdhouse entry holes or putting up martin houses or gourds would help increase the number of places available for martin nesting, thereby perhaps extending the geographic range of the birds in our region.

If you have ready martin houses, with or without nesting birds, Michigan Audubon asks that you register your colony with them (www.michiganaudubon.org/bfc/puma/).

I have a friend in Iron County who has been hoping for martins on his property for several years. Within the last year or so, he had three birds show up, but they did not stay.

He built me a beautiful martin house like his. After a few summers now, I have had no martins nesting. However, I briefly caught a glimpse of a bird flying up to the birdhouse last summer that had the right color and profile to have been a purple martin.

Last summer, we had a pair of nesting house wrens in the martin house and for the past two years, there is a ruby-throated hummingbird that sits daily on one of the perch bars atop the martin house.

A week or so ago, I watched a great-crested flycatcher try to enter the house, but it couldn’t fit through the crescent-shaped opening.

I also have an electronic purple martin caller that turns on and off automatically with the rising sun when martin scouts take flights to seek out new nesting locations.

Wildlife Unlimited of Delta County has provided a handful of purple martin apartments at Ludington Park.

My buddy and I drove through the park until we found a martin house that I usually visit. There were two or three birds sitting on front porches of the house and more gliding through the skies above.

There’s something about seeing purple martins that makes my heart soar. I get a light feeling in my chest and I begin to feel free watching them fly, listening to their happy chattering.

We watched the martins pick up dried grasses, leaves and other items before entering the apartment doors. Some of the birds glided over us within reach. Wow.

We visited each of the martin houses at the park throughout the late morning. We saw one house that had a pair of nesting house sparrows. One martin compartment had been broken in and starlings had claimed the site as their own.

In all, we found 30 or more purple martins nesting in the apartment houses at the park. We also watched terns diving into the water for fish and several tree swallows nesting together at a group of smaller bluebird-style nest boxes away from the martins.

As we stood watching the martins, people passed by jogging, walking, driving vehicles, riding bikes, pushing strollers. It didn’t seem that any of them realized the miracle that was happening here at the park.

This remnant population of purple martins is by far the largest and perhaps the only one of its kind left in the region. I am hoping this column and other efforts – like those of Wildlife Unlimited – will help raise awareness of the plight of purple martins.

The birds have been referred to as “America’s Favorite Backyard Bird.” In turn, martins love nesting near houses of humans, with those that do reportedly having greater nesting success.Eventually, we left the park and continued our outing by visiting a local railroad graveyard before stopping for a sit-down lunch of a pasty, with plenty of table ketchup, and a cold Dr Pepper.

It was my friend’s first time seeing purple martins and very unlikely his last, especially now that he knows where he can find them.

The memories I have of seeing these birds in my childhood, and at the park over the past few summers, are emblazoned in my mind.

I am hopeful that I will see the birds return to many more places across the region. Places like my backyard.

Each morning, I walk outside and hear the martin box chirping away from under the eaves of our garage. Every day I think that today might be the day.

I can almost see the birds gliding over the yard and landing on the bars where I have two martin decoys perched to help attract others.

I feel that it not only can happen, but that it will.

I just don’t know when.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula. Additionally, please contact John Pepin to report nesting purple martins or if you have questions about cleaning out, building, acquiring or modifying a purple martin house on your property.