Hey, fellow bird lover! 👋
Welcome back to The Flyer 🐦 So glad you're here. Each month we bring you original stories, stunning bird photos, fascinating tidbits from the birding world, and a little something to make you stop and look up. Whether you're a lifelong birder or just someone who loves seeing a flash of color outside the window — this one's for you.✨
Now that's up close and personal.
BIRD OF THE WEEK
The Purple Martin
by Andrew Reding (Flickr)
📍 Found in North and South America
🎶 Click here to hear their calls
If there’s anything Purple Martins love, it’s a house party. After every breeding season, they gather by the thousands along the Gulf Coast from Texas to Florida before flying all the way to South America; but right now, they’re in North America where they’re making their nests in Woodpecker holes (in the west) — or in the bundle of birdhouses you hang in your backyard (in the east). The practice of hanging up homes for the Martins goes back to Native Americans, who used to hang up gourds for the birds to use as nests.
These social birds spend much of their lives on the wing, catching and eating insects and even drinking while flying, dipping just their beaks into the water as they skim above it. All summer long, they’ll sing their songs of rapidly cascading notes that can sound a bit like freestyle jazz — depending on whether or not you’re into that, they’ll be delightful backyard companions.
Fun fact: Male Purple Martins have a specific dawn song, sung only in the morning. You know what they say, the early bird…
by Mick Thompson (Flickr)
Birding bits you should know about
by Judy Gallagher (Flickr)
🪦 Tombstone Tourism
‘Cemetery birding’ highlights why hobbyists are flocking to cemeteries across Texas
Wildlife may be closer than you think, if you look in unusual places.
💥 Feeding Frenzy
Hangry Birds
Which bird will best the other at the bird feeder? Play this interactive quiz from National Geographic to find out.
🎧 Beak Bangers
Have you ever wondered what music which birds would listen to?
Now you know! And that’s an indisputable fact!
An amazing bird photo taken by one of our community members. Submit yours to hello@flyingcolors.co to be considered for an upcoming edition!
by @DebSandidge on Twitter
A QUOTE
If we were such and so, the same as these,
maybe we too would be slingers and sliders,
tumbling half over in the water mirrors,
tumbling half over at the horse heads of the sun,
tumbling our purple numbers.
Twirl on, you and your satin blue.
Be water birds, be air birds.
Be these purple tumblers you are.
— From “Purple Martins” by Carl Sandburg
Thank you for being part of our flock!
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About Flying Colors
Flying Colors makes premium organic wild bird food, offering ethically sourced, toxin-free seeds and nuts of the highest quality to nourish wild birds of all types and inspire birders of all ages.
Each specialty blend and single-origin creation is rigorously sourced & researched, and every jar is produced with love & packaged by hand in small batches in New York's Hudson Valley and tested in our own backyards.
