Wildlife in 'the middle of honky-tonk land': Thousands of purple martins will be in downtown Nashville for just a few more weeks

Caroline EggersWPLN News

Purple martins gather in downtown Nashville on August 15, 2023.

People are calling it a show.

Every night, as soon as the sky fades to lilac, thousands and thousands of purple martin birds descend into downtown Nashville.

The birds look like they rehearsed elegant choreography, moving in spinning columns that shoot out individual birds onto a small number of trees next to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, a place that celebrates musical masterpieces.

“This phenomenon is the kind of thing that the great composers were inspired by,” said Graham Gerdeman, a local bird photographer and conservation expert. “This is one of the most spectacular displays of wildlife in North America, and the fact that it’s happening … in the middle of honky-tonk land is fascinating.”

Purple martins are sparkly little songbirds that travel up to 7,000 miles each year from Canada to Brazil, and downtown Nashville has become a routine stopping point for a large roost.

Purple martin populations are dwindling. The migratory songbird is a type of aerial insectivore — birds that eat insects while flying — which is a group that has declined by 32% in the past 50 years. Purple martins are being exposed to high mercury levels in the Amazon Basin and have lost habitat to deforestation and pesticides.

Many communities have welcomed purple martins, and the sparkly little birds seem to like, or at least tolerate, people.

A young purple martin receives regurgitated food.

Nashville has hosted purple martins for over a decade, but the animals keep getting displaced. In 2020, the purple martins selected the Schermerhorn Symphony Center as their late summer residence. They were nearly booted from this site, too.

Last year, the symphony cut about 30 elm trees from its plaza to dissuade the birds from returning. About 10 city-owned trees were spared, after conservation experts and city officials got involved, but trimmed heavily. The plan seemed to work, with the birds finding a different spot last year, until they came back to the symphony site this summer.

“Unfortunately, the trees were pruned last year, and they grew back into a perfect platform for a lot of birds,” said Kim Bailey of Bird Safe Nashville.

In May 2022, the symphony said it would remove the remaining trees on its plaza if the birds returned. But that didn’t happen. Nashville Symphony CEO Alan Valentine said it was too late to take action this year by the time they realized the roost had returned. Now, he said he will work with everyone involved for the best solution.

“At this point, we don’t have any firm plans,” Valentine said.

Gerdeman said it is ironic that the symphony is placing “importance on the stones” that hold music versus the acts of nature many composers credit as catalysts for imagination.

By trying to evict the birds to a different location, “we’re fighting the nature we’re trying to protect,” he said.

The situation is different this year. The birds are roosting in a smaller area in the alley next to the symphony, so the building and entrance have not been defaced in the same way, and the city has been power washing the alley each day.

But there is another change: In May, Nashville officials signed an Urban Bird Treaty, a commitment to protect migratory birds across the city.

So, for now, the show will go on.

At least for a few more weeks.