Welcome to this issue of Stumped by Nature, where we notice nature lurking just beyond our screens, curate a list of outside-y events in Austin, and build community with other folks in the thick of the startup ecosystem.
In this week’s issue:
🐦 Purple Martins
🌤️ Upcoming outdoors events
Let’s dig in!
-Nicole
PS. ATX Outsiders is our community where people get to know each other IRL outside each month. Join us!
Upcoming events:
Sunday, July 19: Reverse Brain Rot: The perfect summer Sunday morning? We read. We write. We jump into Barton Springs as needed.
Monday, July 20: Austin Reading Club: Bring a book. Actually read it. Lightly socialize before and after.
Friday, July 31: Purple Martin Party: Warning: it’s hard to not identify as a full-fledged birder after this event.
NATURE SPOTLIGHT
Not to oversell this, but if you’re looking for a top-5 weekend night of your midlife, have I got a treat for you.
Just picture these key ingredients:
-a lawn chair
-a hat
-the sexiest spot in the strip mall
-100,000+ birds
July 2024
Today we’re digging into Purple Martins.
Don’t tell the bat people, but this is even better wildlife watching than living out your troll-under-the-bridge fantasies. These birds are guaranteed to shit on you and your loved ones before tucking in for the night.
Starting with the basics:
They’re birds
As the largest swallow species in North America, they clock in at 8 inches long with a 15-inch wingspan and a forked tail
Iridescent black males have the blue-sheen they’re close-enough named after
Until they reach full adult plumage at two years, they’re referred to as subadults
When they take flight in the morning, they seldom land until sundown
That expanse of time in flight happens above 150ft, but sometimes higher than 500ft, where they spend the day mowing down bugs
Their preferred bug feasts include wasps, winged ants, flies, some bees, beetles, moths, and dragonflies
Notice mosquitoes are not on this list. Mosquitoes fly too low and are too small for martins to bother much with the effort
A quick Google nixed my plan to recruit a Purple Martin to assist in my pantry-zero war zone—apparently Indianmeal moths are nocturnal
They migrate—winters are in South America, baby-making is in North America
To strengthen their numbers, males whip out The Dawnsong to attract subadults. It’s a vocalization that coincides with egg-laying, and it effectively attracts martins from miles around.
Purple Martins are socially monogamous, but not sexually exclusive
Purple Martins are secondary cavity nesters, which means they don’t excavate their own nest holes
This is in part because Native American communities hung hollow gourds, and over the generations, martins adapted their nesting behavior
In the Eastern US, Purple Martins are entirely reliant on human-supplied housing
In the Western US, they still use old woodpecker holes, including those in cavities of saguaro cacti
People who tend these Purple Martin homes are called landlords
Take a guess at what’s inside
May 2025
Get yourself a spreadsheet
If you’re looking to become a bird landlord, Purple Martin houses need the most open spot available, with no trees taller than a house within 40 feet, but they want to be relatively close to humans, which they associate with safety. Safety from: house sparrows, European starlings, snakes, raccoons, and owls, all of whom are curious and destructive to the Purple Martin mission. It’s tricky to establish a new site because the Martins have strong site fidelity, but once you’ve lured them in (perhaps with your a capella Dawnsong?) they should consistently return.
Alternatively, you could have the good fortune to Know People in the birding community, and you might just swing a springtime invite to steward a new batch of Purple Martins into existence.
Conservationists
The point of cranking down a big gourd contraption? Science!
Landlords who do nest checks go into the gourds a few times a week to monitor what’s going on in each of the numbered homes. Eggs laid. Eggs hatched. Survivors. Intruders. The spreadsheeted information makes its way to Project MartinWatch at the end of the season to contribute to the larger body of information about shifting habitats and population trends.
Eggs!
Babies!
Beauty of nature may be a strong phrase here
For extra credit-oriented landlords, there’s a branch of this conservation that includes snooping into the diets of birds. Your poop gathering dreams could have real legs with this hobby.
The roosting
As for roosting, why disperse widely when you can grab a couple of trees clustered together and squeeze in.
Purple Martins are creatures of habit, and their scouts will return year after year for friendly-enough lands. In the early 2000s, they spent a stretch roosting in Highland Mall, shifting tree clusters before the Mall to Community College construction transition encouraged their house-hunting. They tried on a downtown site near the post office and Riverfront Park, before finding true Strip Mall Delight in Round Rock for the past several years. We know this because birders go absolutely wild for Purple Martins, and also send scouts. Once we see where the birds have chosen, we leap—Travis Audubon hosts mobs of birders in late July and early August in the middle of full suburban bloom to witness a, frankly, ridiculous bird phenomenon.
Side note: If you’re looking for a morbid birding hobby, Travis Audubon also runs an early-morning volunteer patrol with a 6am start to find and rescue Purple Martins who’ve collided with reflective windows of surrounding stores, sending some buddies to two area wildlife rescues. Or you could spend the morning watching the weather radar for the noticeable bird donut blip as they expand out to the skies.
Does it get more majestic than this?
August 2025
As the new flock matures through feathers to flight, we’re all gearing up for the big show: the Purple Martin Parties.
Folks pour into the after hours parking lots and settle in to lawn chairs, the bravest in the group with snacks and/or open beverages. Soon there’s a noticeable presence of birds overhead.
It’s August-hot, with birders perched on asphalt that’s baked in summer sun, folks stretching onto patches of grass. In 2025, there was a miscommunication between the birding community and the Discount Tire sprinkler system, causing a collective reshuffling as our hydrophobic friends were initially concerned there had been a synchronized purple martin DNA study sampling, but was instead a feeble attempt to stretch the lifespan of scorched grass.
The mood shifts when a vortex of birds appears in the sky, circling lower and lower, swooping in torrents. The swells and crests of their cyclone—the general mass of birds descends close enough to trace individuals, the subadult zoomies, the partners flitting, the mass its own force.
July 2024
At an unseen cue, they plunge, one by one, into the chosen trees, where they play musical tree limbs, hopping and situating.
And then they’re in for the night, a thriving mass in a small cluster of oaks. And you’re in a strip mall parking lot shifting your new identity as birder into the crevices of your other pieces of identity.
EVENT ALERT
Obviously, we’re going. Gird your loins for the July 31 Purple Martin Party. I feel morally repulsed by this 8:00pm Friday night start time, but I plan to take that up with the birds.
UPCOMING EVENTS
🗓️ July 9: The Drop-In: Live Music Series: pull up a patch of grass for music + cityscape
🗓️ July 9: Summer Film Series: FernGully: does it haunt you similarly, 34 years later?
🗓️ July 10: Trail Talks: One of my favorite events. See you there!
🗓️ July 11: Goat Yoga: Emphasis on the meeehh in mountain pose
🗓️ July 11: The Board Walks: Just think of the convos you’ll have
🗓️ July 11: Kayak Trash Cleanup: Lady Bird Lake will thank you
🗓️ July 11: African Violet Exhibit + Sale: your windowsill has plenty of room for one more buddy
🗓️ July 11: Orchid Mycology Walk: Fun fact: some wild orchids are mycoheterotrophs. If you also don’t know what that is, this event is for you.
🗓️ July 11: Zombie Apocalypse Hike: this comes with a family-friendly label
🗓️ July 11: Cosmic Creepy Crawlies Night Hike: high chance of scorpions
🗓️ July 11: Lives Remembered: Black History: walking tour of Pease Park
🗓️ July 12: July Free Day! at Zilker Botanical Garden: The exclamation point is doing a lot of work here
🗓️ July 12: Writers Walk: Loosen up thinking and limbs with the creatives
🗓️ July 12: Beaded Plants: When you want a plant for your windowsill, but have a Grim Reaper’s thumb
🗓️ July 14: Late on the Lake: for your open mic desires
🗓️ July 16: Birds of Austin: Expect convos about ducks, chickadees, and woodpeckers
🗓️ July 16: Austin Ruck Club: start the day off sweaty
🗓️ July 17: Cocktails with the Curator: pokey plants + booze
🗓️ July 19: Reverse Brain Rot: I’m hosting this! It'll be both toasty and intellectually nourishing.
🗓️ July 20: Austin Reading Club: I’m hosting this! Bring a book. Actually read it. Lightly socialize before and after.
🗓️ July 31: Purple Martin Party: Also hosting this. There will be birds.
🗓️ August 2: Reverse Brain Rot: Also hosting this. Book time + notebook time.
🗓️ August 10: Austin Reading Club: Hosting this one too. Reading is good for you.
That’s all for this week!
In the meantime, I hope you find awe in a strip mall parking lot.
-Nicole
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