It 9 a.m. Tuesday morning and a dozen purple-winged birds flit around the air, just a foot or two away from members of the Izaak Walton League. The birds are hungry, expecting food while Bob Goetz and Terry Dorsey get ready to fling crickets into the air.

Armed with a plastic spoon and a container full of frozen bugs, Goetz and Dorsey get to work feeding the purple martin population the League has sponsored and watched out for since 2006.

“You’ve heard of the PC game Angry Birds, right?” said Dorsey. “There’s a new game in town. It’s called Hungry Birds.”

Martins are native to the area, but their population has sharply declined for the past couple decades, according to Goetz. That’s why league members decided to put up birdhouses and feed martins during the spring months. Martins usually eat flying bugs, but if springs are cold and wet, bugs won’t be out. For martins, which come back from Brazil around this time every year, there’s been slim pickings the past couple years.

“Last year we lost half of our breeding population,” Goetz said. Goetz and other members track martins in the area in great detail, even getting local groups like the 4-H involved once in a while.

They hope to increase the population this year, as well as get more local groups involved and refurbish bird houses around town. For now, Goetz, Dorsey and other members take pleasure in watching the birds grow, taking care of them.

“Incredible,” Goetz yelled during cricket feeding Tuesday. A martin had flown past his ear, so close he could have grabbed it. “They never get this close.”