PHOTOS: Purple Martins Arrive at EPCOT for Mating Season
Disney World does a lot of work with conservation programs to try and help wildlife flourish. You probably think of Animal Kingdom when it comes to wildlife conservation in Disney World, but that’s not the only place programs are being implemented!
Today, we saw some important conservation work happening over in EPCOT.
Purple Martins in EPCOT
We spotted a bunch of purple martins in EPCOT today! Members of the Disney Conservation team were also there and told us that the birds are looking for mates right now.
You could see the purple martins up at their “hotels,” these bird houses that are used in the park to give them a place to nest. Disney is working to monitor and protect the purple martin, which is a small songbird.
These birds travel 3,000 miles from their winter grounds in Brazil so that they can raise their young. Disney is just helping to provide some housing for them to do so!
You can find this housing around the Disney World Resort, including here in EPCOT. They’re part of a multi-site program in Central Florida to provide some nesting infrastructure for the purple martins.
The goal of the program is to understand the migration and nesting habits of purple martins and try to reverse their decline in population in Central Florida.
Conservation teams from Disney’s Animal Kingdom perform scheduled checks of their nests and they also periodically check the birds, monitor the progress of the new arrivals, and count the eggs.
Some of the purple martins are even tagged with GPS transmitters and other identification tags!
They are just starting the process now of looking for their mates, so it’s only the beginning. But, once newly hatched purple martins are old enough to fly, they will start their migration back to South America.
Stay tuned for more Disney World news and updates!
