Meet the Martins. The empty nesters have a little place near Orlando, though they also winter in Brazil. In their Florida home, the couple raised six kids amid the sunny strains of Disney songs. (Their children practically grew up at Walt Disney World Resort.)

The parents worked long hours to feed their big family, but they always served breakfast warm: dragonflies, crickets, moths and spiders.

That doting pair is part of a special community of hundreds of unique birds – purple martins – that reside in cozy birdhouses made just for them across the Walt Disney World resort.

The Martins resided in a small portion of a colony of nests within smart birdhouses – gourd-shaped enclosures outfitted by Disney and Microsoft with environmental sensors and HD cameras. They are the subjects of a new study that’s opening a window on the secret lives of purple martins – the largest members of the swallow family in North America and a species in decline.

To conservationists, purple martins serve as ambassadors for the majesty of migratory birds, and provide clues about what we can do to help protect them.

“Purple martins are amazing, so acrobatic and agile,” says Dr. Jason Fischer, conservation program manager for Disney. “They are only 8 inches long but that doesn’t hold them back from flying over 6,000 miles from the Brazilian Amazon to Walt Disney World and back every year.

“They are also cavity nesters, which means we can’t just watch what family life is like,” Fischer adds. “What happens in their nests has remained a mystery.”

Since 1966, the estimated count of purple martins in North America has cumulatively fallen by nearly 40 percent, according to Cornell University.

Worse, many types of migratory birds are waning in number, Fischer says.

Those trend lines helped to galvanize the purple martin project. It became part of ongoing collaborations between Disney’s Animals, Science and Environment team and global nonprofits striving to save imperiled wildlife, Fischer says.

“We at Disney want to create magic in new and exciting ways, while being good stewards of the resources around us,” says Tony Ambrozie, senior vice president of technology at The Walt Disney Company. “We knew we wanted to help the birds in a new and creative way.”

To learn more about the species and inspire guests to want to help them, the team first sought to answer some fundamental questions. What does it take to be a great purple martin parent? How do purple martin chicks learn what being a purple martin is all about? And how can they inspire Disney guests to be equally as enthralled by these birds?

They hatched a game plan. They would watch the purple martins as they raised their families. They had one big advantage in that pursuit: Purple martins prefer to nest in custom made bird houses.

While many species occasionally roost in birdhouses, it’s rare for an entire population to choose human-provided housing over natural nesting sites, Fischer says. In eastern North America, nearly all purple martins live in birdhouses and they’re very tolerant of people.

To learn more about the inner lives of purple martins in their birdhouses, Disney Emerging Technologies collaborated with Microsoft.