Bryan Park is my favorite park in Richmond, Virginia. It is there that I met Adolph White, a retired teacher whose conservation efforts support the growth of the Purple Martin population during the annual migration from South to North America. Mr. White meticulously maintains a trio of purple martin houses on twenty-foot poles next to the lower pond. He created protection for these birds with two layers of wire on the outside of their houses, which prevents attacks from the hawks who nest nearby. The purple martins know they are safe here, and they return each year to this exact spot to breed.
In 2015, I photographed the purple martins for Mr. White to use in a presentation at the Audubon Society. The images below are part of a project I developed from those photographs.
