House Sparrow timing

[Guest]

Last year I finally had my first breeding pair only to have a HS kill the eggs in less than a day. This year we've had rain for the past week since I've put up my PM house. No activity until yesterday and today HS are trying to move in at the same time as a pair of PMs. I have a mini-castle and have covered all but 4 of the holes (the ones I can see are open - the ones on the far side where the HS were trying to get in are covered). Is this the best option?

I have my HS trap up again - it was washed out for the better part of the past 2 weeks. Haven't seen as HS at any TS/BB nest boxes in over a month (since I trapped and killed 4 of them) and they show up this AM at my PM house. Argh!!!

Any advice would be appreciated.


Mike

[Donna - TX]

Mike,

I open up all my compartments so I can get as many sparrows as I can. I have traps in my housing and a repeating trap away from the martins. Since I have so many martins I don't like to shoot anymore so I rely on the traps and I have gotten over two-hundred sparrows this year.
The sparrows also would know exactly when I was going to try to shoot them even if I was hiding so this was not an option for me anymore with so many sparrows. I LOVE traps especially the spare-o-door trap which gives me a live decoy for my repeating trap.
If they are going for that compartment I would open up my other nests in hopes they don't chase away your martins.
Good Luck and I hope you get them!

[Guest]

Thank you for the response Donna.

Does anyone know if closing 8 of the 12 entrances of the mini-castle will reduce the chance that the 2-3 PMs will stay? They seem very interested and I have seen them chase off both HS and BB so far. I just know that in the end the HS wins those battles usually.

[Guest]

imo, having closed compartments doesn't bother Martins. I do this on my housing too. I'd make sure I wasn't closing any compartments that the Martins are interested in.
I also keep two compartments set with traps for hosps at all times. Best of luck..

-Steve

[Guest]

The great news is that I have at least 2 PMs now living at the house. I believe that they are SY males. I hope to observe more over the next few days as there may be a third PM. I have not seen the HS since I closed that side of the house. There has been some BB interest but the PMs seem to be driving them off as needed. I have set the HOSP trap about 150' from the house but not caught any as of yet (more rain today will wash away all of the trap bait again).

I am intrigued by the HOSP traps you mention Steve. Are they in the PM housing? How do they differentiate the HOSP from the PM?

[MartiStupka]

I just ordered a Spare O Door trap, and requested that it be rushed to me. 2 sparrows destroyed 5 eggs in one of my apartments, and now think that they can build their little nest and live happily ever after. I will let them continue to build until my Spare O Door arrives, and will clean out the sparrow nest either during our next scheduled nest check in a few days, or when the trap arrives. I considered removing the nest and blocking the apartment, but all of my apartments in my modified mini castle and 2 gourds are full, and I don't want them to raid another nest. I never thought that I would be plotting the demise of any living creature, but the sparrows have changed my mind. Nothing messes with my Martins.

[Dennis D]

I just ordered a Spare O Door trap, and requested that it be rushed to me. 2 sparrows destroyed 5 eggs in one of my apartments, and now think that they can build their little nest and live happily ever after. I will let them continue to build until my Spare O Door arrives, and will clean out the sparrow nest either during our next scheduled nest check in a few days, or when the trap arrives. I considered removing the nest and blocking the apartment, but all of my apartments in my modified mini castle and 2 gourds are full, and I don't want them to raid another nest. I never thought that I would be plotting the demise of any living creature, but the sparrows have changed my mind. Nothing messes with my Martins.

Yes get the sparrow o door trap for the trio. Sparrows love that little hole and you will have them in no time. This is also why I put my housing up a little while before the martins come. It gives me time to get rid of most of the sparrow problems before the martins even get here. And they pretty much lay off the housing by the time egg laying time comes. Good luck!

[Guest]

Have you ever had a martin get trapped? It seems that there is not much to keep that from happening. The PMs seem to be pretty curious when they are house hunting also so I can see them wandering into the trap.

I think I will definitely order one although right now I have 3 PMs that are there constantly and a few other PM visitors from time-to-time. The only other birds that are showing interest are a pair of BBs that seem to be in search of a home. With 10 BB houses within 200 yards of the PM house, you'd think they would be set but it seems that the TS were able to take most of the BB boxes for themselves.

[Dennis D]

Have you ever had a martin get trapped? It seems that there is not much to keep that from happening. The PMs seem to be pretty curious when they are house hunting also so I can see them wandering into the trap.

I think I will definitely order one although right now I have 3 PMs that are there constantly and a few other PM visitors from time-to-time. The only other birds that are showing interest are a pair of BBs that seem to be in search of a home. With 10 BB houses within 200 yards of the PM house, you'd think they would be set but it seems that the TS were able to take most of the BB boxes for themselves.

That's the beauty of this trap. Martins cannot fit thru the hole. You do have to monitor because smaller song birds can, but generally that won't be a problem and you'll only catch sparrows.

[Carlton]

My Spar o Doors were a lifesaver in helping me attract my first pair of martins. I just fought HS and fought HS and the pests would chase off any investigating SY martins. Once I learned about and installed my Spar o Door I was catching HS right and left. The best thing to do, if you have extra compartments in your Trio, is to leave a Spar o Door in there permanently. Yes, the small round door keeps out martins and seems to attract any investigating HS. As said, you do have to watch that no wrens, tree swallows, house finches, chickadees etc. get trapped but that rarely happens. Martins can not get in. Works like a charm and the HS are easy to extract with the device and bag that comes with the Spar o Door. Once the pest is in the bag I just twist the bag so that there is no extra air around him and put a heavy object on the twisted part. He expires quickly if given no room to move or air pockets. I use them on unmodified compartments as the HS are just as attracted to those as the enlarged ones. Put a Spar o Door on two 6x6 compartments as they come looking for each other when they hear or see another HS inside the house.

[Guest]

mwolf00:

Get some traps, for sure. The spare-o-doors have a very good reputation. In my housing I can't use them, so I purchased a couple of the universal sparrow traps. These fit into my compartments very well.

What's essential is that the entrance size be reduced to keep the Martins out. If you can use a spare-o-door, these do the job for you. In my case I had to do so separately, but that's easy. Martins are smart, they may hang out on the porch and even seem to peek in, but they won't enter a reduced opening.

Go get 'em! Best of luck. Let us know if you have more questions...

-Steve

Traps to consider...
http://purplemartin.org/shop/index.php? ... a944efa951

[Guest]

HOSP Update...

As I mentioned before, the HOSP timing has always been pretty bad for me. Well today there was quite a turnaround. Reading posts on the forum convinced me that I needed a Spare-O-Trap door even though I had not seen a HOSP for 3 or 4 weeks. So I ordered it last week and it arrived on Wednesday. I opened the box and looked at it but decided not to install it yet.

Sure enough, I saw a male HOSP on the fence near the PM house briefly on Friday. It was enough to install the door and refresh the bait on my deluxe repeating trap. I wasn't sure where to put the door as the HOSP had not tried to start nest building the in PM house. I have a mini-castle w/ 12 compartments but I had 4 still shut as the number of PMs haven't warranted more availability. Well, I uncovered those last 4 holes and converted one to the Spare-O-Trap door from PMCA (I hope the link is allowable in this instance).

I saw the little bugger again yesterday and he landed on the house while at least 6 PMs were on it! As long as he kept his distance they just kept an eye on him. I thought they would defend the house but they have only built 2 nests and he wasn't near either of them. So they left him alone in a sort of standoff situation. I got my air rifle and took 2 shots from 100' and missed on both. After he inspected a few holes, he flew off.

This AM I checked the house again and the trap had been sprung! Took the house down and there he was. My first catch using this trap. Finally, some HOSP timing for the good. I believe that it was June 6 of last year that the HOSP showed up just in time to kill my first PM eggs. I'm hoping to have eggs laid some time in the next week or two so getting the HOSP now was essential.

PS - I have no idea how people can count male and female PMs so easily. I seem to have 3 dedicated couples and 2 nests. These nests are much hardier than the raided nest last year as they used a lot more mud on the front edge. I also regularly have 10-12 PMs on the house (including the 3 couples). I just can't tell who is who.

The moral of the story - If you have a trio house and are sitting on the fence about the Spare-O-Door, don't wait until you have a problem to order the door - get it now!

[MartiStupka]

This was our first time we ever saw a sparrow since we moved to Florida, and they caused all kinds of death and destruction. Many of you recommended the Spare O Door, and so we got one, and within minutes of setting it up (after we cleaned out the 4th sparrow nest in this apartment), we caught the male sparrow, and he came right out when we attached the plastic cup and bag to the opening of the apartment. It upset us both to have to suffocate the house sparrow, but I just kept thinking about the dead newly born Martin lying on the ground, and all of the eggs that they destroyed. As I buried the sparrow, I suggested that he should be asking for forgiveness because of his behavior. After this, we reset the trap, and put the house back up, and once again, within minutes, the female was trapped. It was getting dark and raining at this point, so we left her there overnight (I hoped that I wouldn't have to kill another sparrow in the morning). This bird, however, was not about to come out of that apartment, and sat in the doorway forever. I'd read that if the male is killed first, the female often doesn't return, so we decided to take a chance, and let her go. The Spare O Door is still set, but we haven't seen her or any other sparrows since May 20. We're happy to report that we now have 19 baby Martins of various ages, and several that are close to fledging. A couple of the apartments had 2nd clutches that have now hatched. We aren't sure how to explain the loss of the earlier clutches, as there were no eggs under the house. At this point, we have one apartment with several twigs in it and when we last checked, there were 9 eggs, but today there were 7 eggs. Has anyone experienced this? Other than the sparrows, we haven't noticed any other predators, and have a pole guard and owl guard, so who knows?

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I think that you made a mistake in letting the female sparrow go. Now she may go to some other martin house and ruin the nest at the other house. Now someone else may be forced to dispose of that same female. It is best to eliminate the sparrows, they hurt not only martins, but other native cavity nesters like bluebirds, chickadees, etc.

Its not easy to kill the first one, it is easier after you destroy a few of them, and finally it does not bother you much at all, so get used to it. Sparrows and martins do not end up well as neighbors.

There are lots of problems with disappearing eggs. Sparrows, starlings, and even SY martin males do stuff like that..In your case, it could have been the SY martin male, or possibly the sparrows.

I am glad that you got the trap, and got rid of the sparrows, so congrats on that..

[KathyF]

mstupka,
It's not true that if you "kill the male first, the female won't come back".

I'm living proof - I've killed 5 males on the same house and every day she comes back with a new male. She's like an evil black widow in bird shape - she doesn't care that I keep killing her mates.

If you can't bear to suffocate them, try some other methods like:

1. Get a can of starter fluid (Ether) for engines and put the bird in a small plastic bag & spray a bunch of Ether in the bag, holding it tightly closed for a couple of minutes. It will put him to sleep much faster & more humanely.
or
2. While holding his body with one hand, grab his head with the other hand and twist his head around until you hear his neck snap....or you can literally pull his head quickly off (but that gets messy).

Either way is more humane and easier for a person to do. I empathize with your distaste for this, but trust me - after losing more martin babies & eggs, you'll be more & more determined.

Good luck!

[MartiStupka]

Thank you for the response. This was our first experience with sparrows, and let me say that the trap has been set since that female left, and this morning we noticed the red flag is showing, so something is in there, and it is most likely the other sparrow. We meant no harm to anyone else's colonies, but that bird was not coming out, and when I tried to grab her, I wasn't quick enough. We figured the trap would be set should she return. I feel worse now after reading the responses, particularly the first one. We only want what is best for all Martins. Hopefully we've caught another one, and I will make sure that she is no longer with us. What do you suggest we do if the captured sparrow won't come out? She sat in that doorway for a very long time and was not budging.

[KathyF]

Hi mstupka - don't feel bad - some of us have a strong hatred of HOSP and sometimes we forget about our "first" time that we had to kill.
Hey, here's a story to make you feel better. I've spent HOURS stalking & killing HOSP - killing 11 so far, helping my neighbors. My neighbor couldn't get his martin house down and 5 baby HOSP fledged. I was sick for 2 days...all that time & effort wasted. But I'm re-energized now!

So, don't worry about us and just keep trying...it's a new day and you can only do what you can do. You'll find that your reward will come from your martins and other birds that appreciate your efforts.

When you say she's "sitting in the doorway and won't budge", do you mean that she won't fly out into the capture bag? If so, then you could try this:

1. Get a larger, colored (not see through) garbage bag to hold over the hole so that she can't see you standing there holding the bag....

2. Try banging on the opposite side of the house.

3. Try getting a can of the starter fluid and cracking the trap door just a little, little bit and spraying some ether in the hole to knock her out.

**Warning - *ONLY* do #3 above if no other birds are in the house AND ensure that she's knocked out, grab her and put her in the bag to finish her off. If she doesn't inhale enough ether, it only knocks her out and she will fly off if you don't finish the job.

Good luck - keep us posted!

[Guest]

The HOSP I caught also stayed in the house at first so I just left the cup connected with the clear plastic bag held on by the rubber band. I just did a normal nest check on the rest of the compartments and that unnerved the HOSP enough that he attempted his escape only to be caught in the plastic bag.

I am not fond of killing HOSP but better them than the PM, TS, and BB kills that I have seen them be responsible for.

Good Luck.

[ben_wood]

I have absolutely no problems killing HS's. I have seen too many instances where both martins and bluebirds were killed by these "illegal aliens".

[Guest]

Mike,

I started trapping hs this year out of necessity. There were so many. I don't know where they all came from. They get wise after awhile to shooting them and will fly now if they even see me looking out the window. Last week I purchased a Blaine's repeating trap. For the last week I have averaged 7 to 9 hs per day. Numbers about 1/2 male & 1/2 female. 9 yesterday. 5 females today.

I set my trap within sight of my PM housing. If one comes to my housing he will be in my trap shortly there after. I keep a female alive in the trap. She is like a hs pied piper.

Good luck.