August 5, 2025
This morning at 0730, Carrie, Karen, Rob, Scott and Joseph joined Ken and me to do our fourth and final nest box check of the 18 Purple Martin nests at the 3 Crabs Colony. Slightly overcast, 59 degrees, and calm, with the low tide just hitting -0'6", conditions were ideal. Sixteen nest boxes had a total of 49-50 chicks and 8 eggs. The four eggs in Box 4A on July 22 have hatched and the chicks look 3-4 days old. Boxes 1C and 4B are still completely bare.
To compare today's data with the previous two counts in a new window click: 2025 Purple Martin Census. Hint: If possible, drag the new window to the side so you can see the table while you look at each photo. See if you agree with today's count of eggs and chicks.
To see the June 22nd photos in a new window click: June 22, 2025.
To see the July 12th photos in a new window click: July 12, 2025.
To see the July 22nd photos in a new window click: July 22, 2025.
The 18 nest boxes are mounted at the top of the three pilings, about 15' above the sand.
Purple Martin Colony 3 Crabs Beach
To inspect a box, I lean a ladder against the piling, climb up about 10', and insert an endoscope through a small hole in the front of the nest box. I can view what the camera shows on my cell phone, and Ken and the rest of the team can view it on their their mobile devices from the ground below. If I place the ladder correctly, I can insert the endoscope into all six nest boxes on the piling. I quickly take pictures, then move to the next piling. So we only disturb the birds for 3-5 minutes at each piling.
To see a short (and silent) video of this process in a new window in your web browser click here. The video is 59 MB, so I don't recommend trying to play it on your cell phone. It takes about 15-20 seconds to load.
The "tri-plex" boxes are labeled nA, nB, nC, from top to bottom, so the first piling has 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, 2B and 2C. The second and third pilings continue the numbering system. We write the box numbers at the back of the nest box to make it easy to identify the box from the photo.
According to The Cornell Lab, Purple Martins typically lay 4-6 eggs, one per day, generally in the morning. Incubation starts with the second to last egg, so the chicks all hatch within a day or two of each other.
- Egg size: 0.8-1.1" long; 0.6-0.8" wide
- Incubation: 15-18 days
- Fledging: 27-36 days
Below are the endoscope photos of each nest.
Purple Martin Box 1A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were six eggs on June 22nd and 5-6 chicks on July 22nd, so it appears that 3-4 have fledged.
Purple Martin Box 1B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were six eggs on June 22nd and 5-6 chicks on July 22nd, so it appears that one has fledged. These siblings look ready to leave.
Purple Martin Box 1C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
Still empty.
Purple Martin Box 2A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were five eggs on June 22nd and 4-5 chicks on July 22nd, so it appears that 2-3 have fledged.
Purple Martin Box 2B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were five eggs on June 22nd and 4-5 chicks on July 22nd, so it appears that 2-3 have fledged.
Purple Martin Box 2C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
Box 2C had only one egg on June 22, but had five eggs on July 12. Then on July 22nd there was only one chick. The chick is growing but doesn't look like it is thriving.
Purple Martin Box 3A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were four eggs on June 22nd and 3-4 chicks on July 22nd, so it appears that all have fledged.
Purple Martin Box 3B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
Box 3B had 3 eggs on June 22, and 6 eggs on July 12 and July 22nd Today there are only 2 eggs. It is not possible that four eggs hatched and the chicks fledged in just 14 days, so this remains a mystery. Do the adults move eggs between nests?
Purple Martin Box 3C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were five eggs on June 22nd and 4-5 chicks on July 22nd Either one is hidden under the others or it has fledged.
Purple Martin Box 4A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
These four chicks appear to be just 3-5 days old. Hopefully the parents can fatten them up really fast. They are at least 24 days from fledging, and then they have to get strong for the migration. This will be a challenge for them.
Purple Martin Box 4B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
Still empty.
Purple Martin Box 4C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
We think these four chicks hatched on July 11th, making them 26 days old. Very close to fledging.
Purple Martin Box 5A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
If you look at the photos from July 12th, it appears that the five chicks in Box 5A were the first to hatch and were 6-7 days old. So this chick is 30-31 days old. This one may have fledged, but come back to rest.
Purple Martin Box 5B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were four eggs on July 22nd. Look closely and you will see two dead chicks and two discolored eggs. Very sad to see a nest fail. Perhaps an inexperienced female from last year.
Purple Martin Box 5C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
Another mystery here. This nest had 5 eggs on June 22, and 4-5 chicks that were 2-3 days old on July 12. Only two chicks were visible on July 22nd in a very dirty nest. But now there are four chicks visible (look closely) and they look well-fed. These should fledge very soon.
Purple Martin Box 6A at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
These four chicks have looked healthy at all three nest checks. They are 27-28 days old and close to fledging.
Purple Martin Box 6B at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
These four eggs were laid between July 12th to July 22nd, so are a minimum of 14 days old. It is possible the female abandoned them, or delayed incubation for some reason. If they do hatch now, it will be very challenging for them to survive to migration.
Purple Martin Box 6C at 3 Crabs. 8/5/2025
There were four health-looking chicks on Jully 12th and 22nd, so there are probably four here today, but hard to count.Almost ready to leave the nest.
Purple Martin Box 10B in Dungeness. 8/5/2025
This is a new nest box installed on private property in Dungeness, approximately 0.3 miles south of the parking lot at 3 Crabs. On our first inspection there was one egg and three newly hatched chicks. On subsequent inspections we've only seen three chicks, but there could be a fourth underneath the pile. These will fledge any day now.
If you have Internet Explorer 10 or current versions of Chrome, Firefox, or a new iPad, you should be able to play a short video covering one season (2018) of Purple Martin nesting at 3 Crabs.
Click Here to play the video in your web browser (requires an HTML5-compliant web browser). When you finish, click the HOME button at the bottom left edge of the page, or click the picture of me in the upper left corner of the page, to return to this page.
If the video won't play click here to try it with your system software.
Purple Martins
3 Crabs Colony
August 12, 2025
This year the first Purple Martin returned to 3 Crabs on April 17th. After 4-5 weeks resting, feeding and chosing their nest boxes, they spent several weeks gathering grass, sticks, and mud to build their nests. On June 22nd we counted 56 eggs in 13 of the 18 nest boxes, but no chicks. On July 12th we counted 43 chicks but suspect there were another 7 buried under the others. July was unseasonably cool, windy, and foggy, and the adults were kept busy finding small flying insects to feed their young. The weather improved at the beginning of August and their preferred food, dragonflies, became available. The first fledgling observed was on August 2nd.
First fledgling observed, getting a dragonfly. 8/2/2025
First fledgling observed, getting a dragonfly. 8/2/2025
First fledgling observed, getting a dragonfly. 8/2/2025
Two dragonflies for two chicks. 8/8/2025
Although not visible in the above photo, the female has a green color band on her left leg and a silver USGS band on her right leg. You can see both in the photo below. After three days and several hundred photos, I finally managed to capture all the numbers and letters on the color band. They are WA W018. This female was banded as a chick by Randy Hill and Cindy McCormack on July 26, 2020 at the Julia Butler Hansen NWR in Wahkiakum County, WA. So she has made five trips to Brazil and back and is successfully raising four chicks this year in Box 4C at 3 Crabs! Scroll down in the center column at to your left to see the chicks in the nest.
WA W018 - Five year old female with 4 chicks to feed. 8/9/2025
The flock remains vigilant and chases away all predators.
Chasing away an American Kestrel. 8/10/2025
History
Efforts to establish a Purple Martin (PUMA) colony at 3 Crabs Estuary in Dungeness, WA began in the mid-1990s. Volunteers from the Olympic Peninsula Audubon Society (OPAS) constructed four simple nest boxes and hung them on old pilings that they accessed by boat. By 2005 PUMA were returning regularly and OPAS began adding more boxes. Instead of using a boat at high tide, volunteers monitored the nests at minus tides when they could walk out on the tide flats and raise and lower the boxes with a 10' pole.
Purple Martin nest boxes at 3 Crabs, 5/16/2010
For more information on the history of the OPAS Purple Martin project, see: Purple Martin Nest Box Study,
There are also some excellent blog posts about the PUMA outings here: OPAS Blog,
I joined the other volunteers in 2009 and have helped build, maintain, and monitor the nest boxes ever since. Every fall, after the Purple Martins head south, we bring in the nest boxes to clean, repair, and store until spring. The goal is to put the boxes back up shortly before the PUMA return in early to mid-April. The challenge is that we have to do this task when we have a daylight minus tide. The PUMA do not read our tide charts so sometimes they arrive while we are putting up the boxes, and sometimes we put the boxes up a week or two before they arrive.
Newly retired, young and fit, I took over the task of lowering the nest boxes on a 10' pole, so we could hang them on a nail at eye level. Then we would remove the door, insert a mirror, and take a picture of the reflection of the nest in the mirror.
Checking a Purple Martin nest box at 3 Crabs Beach, 6/22/2009
Finally we replaced the door, raised the nest box on the pole and hung it up again. This was somewhat challenging on a calm day and very challenging on a windy day. After a wind gust nearly caused me to drop a box containing eggs I proposed screwing a board to the feet of an extension ladder so it wouldn't sink in the mud, and inspecting the boxes from the ladder. This created new challenges but over the years we have modified nest boxes, the ladder, and the method of taking photos. Here is what that process looked like:
Checking a Purple Martin nest box at 3 Crabs Beach, 7/12/2018 (by Sally Harris)
In 2018, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, North Olympic Salmon Coalition, and about 28 other organizations completed a major project to restore the Dungeness Estuary at 3 Crabs. This effort included removing the 3 Crabs Restaurant and an old bridge over Meadowbrook Creek, rerouting the road and constructing a new bridge, and removing several hundred old creosote-covered pilings left over from the Dungeness Wharf. Yes, including the pilings that we hung the Purple Martin boxes on. To understand the scope of this project, watch the excellent 8-minute documentary produced by local cinematographer John Gussman, titled 3 Crabs, 5 Salmon, 30 Partners.
You may also enjoy my 4-minute video of the piling removal, which happened from October 12-17, 2018. NOTE: this is a 65MB file so it may take a minute to load before it starts playing. For those of you who are fact-checking me, be aware that the Purple Martins you hear singing in this video were half-way to Brazil, having left town in early September. Chalk this up to poetic license on my part.;)
Fortunately, OPAS negotiations resulted in three new steel pilings placed where we specified on the tide flats where we had been hanging the boxes on about ten pilings. If you watched the above video of the piling removal, you will see that they installed the three steel pilings before beginning to remove the old pilings. In 2012 we began experimenting with a new box design, using 6" PVC pipe mounted on a 1x6" backboard and then attached to piling.
New PVC nest box design at 3 Crabs, 6/21/2012
The Purple Martins seemed happy with this design and we slowly started replacing old wood boxes with these new, lighter boxes. In June 2018, with permission from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, we mounted two duplex nest boxes in the tidal lagoon adjacent to the parking lot at 3 Crabs.
New nest box installation at 3 Crabs, 6/26/2018
Since we now only had three pilings, we spent the fall and winter designing and building six Purple Martin triplexes using the 6" PVC pipe. Here is a photo of the new boxes ready to install. What looks like a nose is a handle for pushing the door in or pulling it out. A small nail on each side secures the door. The hole near the top on the right side of the handles is an access hole for inserting an endoscope camera to photograph the nest. So we no longer have to remove the door, which is safer for the birds and for the person on the ladder.
New triplexes ready for installation, 3/17/2019
We also added a stand-off to the ladder. The photo below, captured by John Gussman, shows me inserting the endoscope into Box 1A while looking at the image on my cell phone. When I get the image focused on the nest, and showing the box number on the back of the box, I press a button on the screen to take the photo. I really appreciate the ground crew holding the ladder steady. We can now photograph all 18 nests in under 20 minutes, vastly reducing the annoyance factor for the birds.
Checking a Purple Martin nest box at 3 Crabs Beach, 7/12/2025. Photo courtesy of John Gussman.
