An enormous flock of Purple Martins has gathered in and around the parking lot of the Fountains Shopping Center facing the Southwest Freeway in Stafford, where they’ve taken up a noisy nighttime roost on nearby power lines and the allée of oak trees that leads through the concrete expanse to Rack Room Shoes and Old Navy. This is likely the same group that hung out in Sharpstown or the eastside KBR campus in previous years, on its way to Brazil; it appears to be the birds’ first window-shopping experience at Mattress Giant.
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“This group of PMs seems to consistently choose oak trees near water usually with some nearby mercury lights shining down on the trees,” reports one observer. The evening and morning activity is easily visible on Doppler radar.
- Thousands of migrating Purple Martins swarm in Stafford [KHOU 11 News]
- Sharpstown Roost [Purple Martin Forum]
Videos: ShadowHunter and BumBee02. Photo: Mary Anne Weber
Those birds are awesome! Such a cool sight to see. And they eat mosquitos too!
F’in birds, why arent they at Sharpstown like they used to be.
If you keep heading down the SW Freeway and head over to Lakeview Elementary, you can also see thousands of chimney swifts come out of the old smoke stack from Imperial Sugar in the evening. It’s like seeing thousands of little flying cigars in the air.
Man, this is neat. I bet your boy at Kim Son is not too happy about all these here birds.
Wear a hat
I’m so happy to see there are bird-admirers among us!
This is how I imagine the end of the world begins.
Isn’t this the place with the fake lake in front? That’s why the martins are there. Hopefully the fine people in Stafford have a more positive view of the birds than the people at the Gulfgate Sonic where they butchered to vertical stumps several beautiful live oaks in order to keep the grackles from roosting.