The Elusive Purple Martins Have Been Sighted!

We were pulling into Chick-Fil-A, near the busy "Jackson and Jackson" intersection on the McAllen side of the Pharr-McAllen city limits. Elaine spotted the black swarms through the sunroof. We think the nearby bright Sam's Club parking-lot lights had attracted the elusive Purple Martins.

Eight minutes later when we came out with our takeout food, we could not see the swarms, even by the light of a full moon, but Elaine could hear their distinctive chirps to the east. Local sunset tonight was at 8:17 p.m.

We then followed the loud sound to a row of scrawny oak trees along the north border of the Sam's Club fuel pumps, which front on South Jackson Road. Easy viewing nearby. A nice gas attendant there, Lupe, said, yep, they have been noisily roosting in those trees for several nights now. He was anxious to have the breed's name for his P-SJ-A high-school studies. The martins do not roost overnight, he added, in a much larger oak tree just across on the Pharr side of South Jackson Road.

Were there "thousands of birds," as we have seen above previous years' spectacular pre-migratory roosts? Sure.

Frank Birkhead, 74, of adjacent Pharr is a retired McAllen city official and a Valley resident of 48 years. He was named McAllen Chamber’s Volunteer of the Year in 2006.