The Purple Martin Conservation Society worked with manufacturer Songbird Essentials, which is donating new houses.
HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP -- A national birding group has arranged for the replacement of the birdhouses that were set afire earlier this month at St. Michaels Farm Preserve, killing several purple martins.
Township police suspect vandals tossed the birdhouses into a fire pit on the 4th of July. A criminal investigation into the arson and animal cruelty is ongoing.
The Mercer County Wildlife Center is currently caring for five purple martins that survived.
When news of the incident reached the Purple Martin Conservation Society, the group's volunteers worked with a partner manufacturer, Songbird Essentials, which is donating new houses, called gourds.
"We're very happy," said Jay Watson, vice president at the D&R Greenway Land Trust, which owns the preserve, who worked with the conservation society.
The Purple Martin society also announced the news on their Facebook page.
Destroyed in the fire pit was a birdhouse system, Watson explained, with a main wood house surrounded by plastic gourds - which are designed to attract the birds.
The houses are mounted on a pole. In all, the houses can be home to 18 purple martins, a very social bird that eats insects, he said.
The houses called gourds are named that way because Native Americans used hollowed-out real gourds to attract purple martins centuries ago, Watson said.
Watson responded to the fire pit himself, after a hiker found the charred houses on July 5 and reported it to police and the D&R Greenway.
And he was the one who scooped up the five surviving birds.
Birds killed when houses tossed into fire pit
Watson she he and the others at the D&R Greenway are clinging to the belief that whoever put the birdhouses in a fire pit may not have known birds were inside.
"We just don't want to believe they would willfully throw them into the fire like that," Watson said.
And the organization has been buoyed by people making donations to the Mercer County Wildlife Center, which is nursing the baby birds back to health.
The birds eat 60 meal worms an hour, every hour, for 12 hours a day and they will need this diet for about 30 days.
The Wildlife Center Friends, which supports the wildlife center, is seeking donations to assist in caring for the surviving martins.
"So we're looking for the silver lining in this, if there is one to be had," Watson said.
Hopewell Township police Lt. Chris Kascik said Thursday the investigation is ongoing, but had had no new developments to report.
Anyone with information for police can call Kascik at 609-737-3100.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.