Purple Martin

Progne subis

The purple martin is a passerine bird in the swallow family Hirundinidae. It is the largest swallow in North America. They breed across the eastern United States and southeastern Canada, as well as the coastal Pacific Northwest, Baja California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Most make a brief stopover in the Yucatán Peninsula or Cuba during pre-breeding migration to North America and during post-breeding migration before reaching their overwintering sites in South America. Source

Where it is now

In the last 8 weeks this bird was recorded 34,216 times across 41 areas (each area is a 5 degree square).

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Movement and weather

Each season it is first heard regularly where daytime highs are around 23°C (typically 17 to 27°C, from 37 areas). That range is wide, so temperature alone does not explain when it turns up.

Over the weeks it was present in the past year, its centre in North America ranged from 28°N in March to 48°N in August, about 2,300 km apart.

Arrival dates

The week it was first heard regularly in each region, after at least six weeks away. Dates differ from south to north, so a region has a range.

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Figures are effort corrected and come from automatic sound identification, which makes mistakes. How this is measured and how it compares with human observers.