Purple martins topic at Garden Club meeting
George “Bly” Blystone of Waynesburg presented a program on purple martins at the May meeting of the Town & Country Garden Club of Rices Landing. In the PowerPoint presentation, club members viewed the purple martin’s physical features, habitat, nesting, breeding, eggs, food supply and predators.
Blystone is married to Ann, the granddaughter of J. Warren Jacobs, founder and inspiration for the Jacobs Bird House Co. Jacobs designed and manufactured a line of architecturally pleasing and scientifically correct nesting houses for colony and single-nesting bird species.
Over his 70-year career, Jacobs established an international reputation for his knowledge of purple martins and their nesting behavior. Members also viewed 24 signed original 6- by 6-inch pen-and-ink drawings of birds by Jacobs. The detailed drawings were used in 1883 as flash cards at Waynesburg College.
Blystone continues the tradition of handcrafting birdhouses, particularly for purple martins.
The Purple Martin Conservation Association is in Erie.