February 24, 2024, featured the unveiling and actual, dramatic uplifiting of an array of Purple Martin gourds in a field in Lake Fayetteville Park that is part of Botanical Garden of the Ozarks. This is a project coordinated by Kelly Mulhollan and Michael Cockram.
They previously worked together on creation of Mulhollan Waterfowl Blind at Lake Fayetteville, not far from BGO. They are both also musicians. Kelly and Donna Mulhollan are well known as Still on the Hill. Michael and Susan Shore are well known as the duo, Shore and Cockram.
So today was a dramatic follow up. Kelly and Donna found four Purple Martins there this morning – two males and two females. Kelly thinks there may already be more than four. You can count too, and let someone know.
You can see the array by parking in the lot south of BGO (for trail users), then walking sort of west, toward the lake. The gourds are white. Even though martins are famously not disturbed by humans, you can give them a little space if you decide to go out for a look. There are other birds in that area, too, so binoculars will be handy, but not required.
Martins provide a good tonic for our world,
So sadly over run with economic injustice,
Homelessness, poverty, evils of war,
Endless disasters, steady creep of climate change.
