By TRACEY SIMMONS-DANZ, guest columnist

This past winter, Neil Crum, a mentor with the Purple Martin Conservation Association, gave a purple martin presentation in northern Brown County.

Purple martins are a songbird and are the largest member of the swallow family. Adult male purple martins have shiny black feathering with purples and blues among them. Adult females are brown and grey with a rim of white on the outer edge of their feathering with purple on their heads.

Purple martins are insectivores that eat flying insects during the day while in flight. They are social birds and colonial nesters, which means they like to nest in groups. They will use houses having multiple nesting compartments — or gourd housing. As long as a mated pair was successful the year before with raising their family they will return to that same nesting location.

Crum talked about the importance of being a good purple martin “landlord.” The significance of proper pole placement — out in the open with no trees, bushes or other objects close to the pole. You do not want to give raptors or owls easy access to a small bird meal. Purple martins want to be around humans, because hundreds of years ago, Native Americans grew gourds, dried them and then hung them from trees, which the purple martins used as housing. The pole should be placed near human housing.

In the movie “Field of Dreams” it is whispered, “If you build it, he will come.”

I had gone to the purple martin presentation for my own endeavors with my property. After the presentation, I had “If you build it, they will come” racing through my thoughts along with visions for building purple martin housing on my property and at Sprunica Elementary School.

Two days after Crum’s presentation, on Feb. 14, I received a wonderful Valentine’s Day present. In a meeting with Principal Shane Killinger I discussed the idea of having a fundraiser to purchase purple martin housing to establish a colony at Sprunica Elementary and he approved.

When I proposed this idea, it was with the intention of helping the students learn to give back in a positive way to our world and to be good stewards to our Earth by taking action to help the creatures that are threatened and in need of human intervention to bring up their population numbers, such as the purple martins.

All at Sprunica would be the “landlords” to the colony, and would view it as a team effort.

There is an African proverb which states: “It takes a village to raise a child.” This means it takes more than just family to be involved in a child’s upbringing, which is complex and cannot be done alone. A child needs to be raised to be a giver in life rather than a taker.

A child will do better in life when there are more people to help teach them and let them know they are cared about, loved and protected.

Sprunica’s teachers and staff — as a team — are part of the village helping raise children with lessons taught, books read, and fundraisers completed.

With the purple martin fundraiser, seeds were planted to help students think outside of the box when it came to raising funds for special causes and to help them realize that sometimes the cause is within their own backyard.

This school year, we had a newly established student council, which spearheaded the fundraising efforts. They decided to have Spirit Days on Fridays with students bringing in a quarter to participate. With this, funds were raised for both the Brown County Humane Society and the purple martin housing.

Then began the Sprunica journey of building housing so the purple martins would come.

On March 4, Crum came to Sprunica to present a “kid’s version” of his purple martin presentation to the second through fifth-grade students. This included a recorded video of a 2021 nesting pair raising their family. With kindergarten and first graders, I gave a mini-version of the older students presentation within the classroom, which also included the video.

We teach students to learn from their mistakes. With that said, I had my own previous mistakes made in trying to establish a purple martin colony on my property.

The first mistake was the purple martin pole and house were placed on the edge of the woods. Even after this was corrected, another mishap occurred while trying to raise the telescoping pole with house. The upper pole came out of the bracket and was caught by the wind, causing the house to crash to the ground.

With Crum mentoring both Sprunica and myself it was decided the best scenario was to us S&K’s easy pulley system pole with a gourd rack and six plastic gourd houses.

The goal for purple martin landlords is to have their housing up by April 1.

Brown County Schools’ maintenance crew were going to do the required digging and concrete work for Sprunica. The pole must be set in a hole dug 12 inches wide and 20 inches deep with concrete work done in two steps.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature was not cooperating with our efforts to have the pole set in the ground, so the housing could be up on time. Rain delay after rain delay hampered our efforts. Days turned into weeks, with April 1 coming and going.

On April 4, my own pole and housing were raised. The “Dawn Song” CD played to help attract the incoming purple martin migrators. With the delays at Sprunica, I thought I would be able to get purple martins first, and fast, since I had been trying for a few years now. Then I could use my CD to help get the purple martins at Sprunica.

But the rains continued along with other delays. Eventually the hole for Sprunica’s pole was dug and the initial 2 inch concrete base was poured.

Then more rain, which filled up the hole with water. Time was ticking with more and more purple martins arriving in Indiana. The maintenance guys were then able to finish setting the lower section of the pole in concrete.

At long last on April 29 — with a student crew of eight — we were able to get the rest of the pole, gourd rack and gourds up. Dried white pine needles were placed inside the gourds to help start the nest.

This was a great accomplishment, but there were still no purple martins at my place, so I did not have the “Dawn Song” CD available to use at school. This had me worried.

I did know that purple martin decoys can also help lure purple martins, so that following Saturday, I bought one and installed it on Sprunica’s gourd rack. On Sunday, May 1 to my astonished amazement, a pair of purple martins were on Sprunica’s pole checking out a gourd!

The next day, I was able to see my first male purple martin who sat regal and majestically on Sprunica’s gourd rack. Best of all was seeing the many students and their excitement because they too could see this majestic male purple martin sitting on the gourd rack from their classroom windows. By midweek, the female was seen carrying nesting materials into a gourd.

Another line from the movie “Field of Dreams” is: “Sometimes when you believe the impossible, the incredible can come true.”

I believed and others at Sprunica believed. The funds were raised to help these incredible purple martin songbirds and — with teamwork — we are now purple martin landlords.

We built it and they came!

Tracey Simmons-Danz is a paraprofessional at Sprunica Elementary School. She can be reached by emailing [email protected].