Purple Martins are native songbirds in the swallow family that are widely loved for their song, graceful flight, social behavior, and insect-eating habits. They nest in colonies, migrate to the Brazilian Amazon, and return north to the same colony site each year. Their populations are declining in many parts of North America, with over one-third of Purple Martins, 4,300,000 birds, lost in the last 50 years. East of the Rocky Mountains, they now depend almost entirely on human-supplied housing after habitat loss and competition from nonnative House Sparrows and European Starlings reduced natural nesting opportunities such as old woodpecker holes, rock ledges, and dead trees. Native Americans had centuries earlier hung dried gourds for martins to nest in to help control insects. Purple Martins are neotropical migrants that raise their young in North America and winter in the Amazon Rainforest, with a breeding range east of the Rockies from Florida into Canada, and GPS tracking has shown that their journey to winter roosting sites in Brazil can be up to 7,500 miles, while the return trip can take as little as three weeks. Adult males are iridescent dark blue-purple with brown-black wings and tail, while females and younger birds are duller with varying gray on the head and chest and a whitish lower belly; the male is the only North American swallow with a dark belly. Purple Martins are aerial insectivores that catch insects and even drink while flying, and studies have shown they eat over 250 billion insects each year, including dragonflies, moths, butterflies, flies, beetles, wasps, and other flying insects. People who provide housing can support the species, and Purple Martin enthusiasts also contribute through citizen-science projects organized by the Purple Martin Conservation Association, an international nonprofit founded in 1987 and dedicated to Purple Martin conservation through research, wildlife management, and public education.