School Activities

Marvelwood School- Purple Martin Conservation work

“After two weeks of trying to spot Purple Martins with GPS data loggers, that had been attached to 20 Purple Martins at Marvelwood School and Sharon Audubon’s Miles Wildlife Sanctuary last summer,  the Avian Ambassadors Community Service Team finally met with success!  Today,  Sebastian K. ‘24 and Jonas M-G. ‘25,  spotted and captured two GPS tagged ASY males at Marvelwood’s colony!  No easy feat!

Joe Siegrist, President of the Purple Martin Conservation Association (PMCA), will instruct students on how to download the data next week. The GPS data loggers collected between five and six data points each day the tags were on the birds and will help pinpoint the bird’s location (within a few meters of each point) during their travels!  The data will allow us to see each bird’s migratory pathway and where they spent their time in South America during the non-breeding season. The data will also help the PMCA, and its research collaborators in Brazil, learn more about the full annual cycle of purple martins that breed in Northwestern Connecticut!

This research is funded by a grant from the Jeniam Foundation  and is a collaborative effort with Marvelwood School, Kent Land Trust, Sharon Audubon Center and the Purple Martin Conservation Association.

Two GPS tagged birds down, eighteen more tagged birds left to find!   Stay tuned for the adventure travels of these birds!

All banding is conducted under a federally authorized Bird Banding Permit issued by the U.S. Geological Survey and a permit from the State of Connecticut.”

Creative minds in the studio-Kent School

Students Out in Nature - Millbrook School