Tree Swallow entrance hole

Guest · Mon Feb 20, 2012 5:17 pm

Dave,
Thought I would share this link with you regarding TS housing. It doesn't specifically speak to porches on the wooden boxes, but he does address perches. I guess a perch may be better than a porch

http://www.treeswallowprojects.com/boxmount.html

Also thought I would show you what I plan on doing this year. I'm using gourds with (S&K BO-9's) that have a TS specific entry plate and I was planning on adding a porch (as shown in photo) unless I hear from more experienced TS landlords that porches are a bad idea

D'Nese,
I apologize in advance if you've already read this, but Dr. Dan Drew has some great suggestions on keeping TS's in their own boxes and away from the PM housing.
http://www.drugfreeworkplace.com/~Dan/T ... GENCY.html

Again, I hope I'm not duplicating something that you've already know about....
EDIT: Sorry D'Nese, I just realized that Dr. Dan's guidelines were already referenced in this thread. My bad.

D'Nese · Mon Feb 20, 2012 7:27 pm

Scott,
Thank you for your pic and the web site. I've read it before and just went over it again. I will hopefully be able to get the TS's attracted to the gourds BEFORE the martins come in. If memory serves me I think the male TS's start arriving just before my martins so well will have to wait and see. Thanks again.

Linda Reynolds · Mon Feb 20, 2012 8:20 pm

Many, many years ago, I found, and a read a book from our local library. The book was titled *Songbirds in My Garden* by John K. Terris. There were plans for a tree swallow house that were absolutely wonderful. the house was designed by Henry E. Kinney. I copied these plans, and even shared them with many friends and members of another forum over the years.

I recently found the plans on the Sialis site, and thought our tree swallow fans might enjoy seeing this:

http://www.sialis.org/kinney.htm

D'Nese · Tue Feb 21, 2012 8:12 am

I loved it Linda, already printed it for the "honey do" list.

KathyF · Tue Feb 21, 2012 11:48 am

Well, these slots worked all last year (except for the one). I watched HOSP trying to enter last year and they couldn't. Now all of a sudden today I have a male HOSP and his girlfriend going in and out of every box with a slot on it. WHAT??? The only thing I can think of is maybe it's because they are "winter-skinny"??

I guess I need to go measure all the others but I'm really bumming right now. After all the success I had last year with these things, I really don't want to have to worry about HOSP & tree swallows again.

KathyF · Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:06 pm

Ok, after watching some more, it appears only the female is able to enter / exit the boxes. She does look rather small. The male is just perching on top of the house. Time to set some traps & get her.

Guest · Tue Feb 21, 2012 12:59 pm

KathyF wrote:Ok, after watching some more, it appears only the female is able to enter / exit the boxes. She does look rather small. The male is just perching on top of the house. Time to set some traps & get her.

Hi Kathy, happy to hear that it's not as bad as you originally thought in that only the female junk bird is gaining entry. Hopefully by now, you've caught her. When it comes to the HOSP's trying to get into my BB houses, I've had a lot of luck with Van Ert traps. Do you use those?

Secondly, I owe you an apology. I didn't see your earlier post in which you told me about the slot openings that you use. I went to Bernie's old post (from May 2006) but unfortunately the link that he listed (from Mary Wilson in Ontario) doesn't work.

As you probably know, my plan is to try out some BO-9 gourds this year for the TS's, but I might also put up some boxes, so it would be great to have these entrances on hand. So do you still recommend using a piece of old vinyl siding (7/8" tall by 2 1/4" long)?

Thank you!
Scott

KathyF · Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:17 pm

Hi Scott,
I use the Van Ert traps - I love that I can put a couple of screws in all my doors and just insert the trap when needed. I have 3 of them.

No apologies necessary - my only goal is to get the information out there, no matter who gets it out there.

And yes, I still recommend the slotted entrances. To get more into detail of how I started using these. When I first put on the 7/8" high slots, the tree swallows were acting like they couldn't get into them when they first arrived, so I cut a bunch of 1" high slots and put those on (SREH panic

). After they became experts at navigating them, I then put the correctly sized set of slots (yes, I drive my hubby crazy using his tools!!) that were 7/8" tall back on and, given that they had become comfortable with the whole idea of the slot, they just slipped right in then.

As my experience with the one that was breached proves though, it's critical to get the size right.

After my panic today, I may even cut yet another size slot - maybe go 1/16" smaller and try that. I have plenty of left over siding...and hubby is distracted with other things.

Guest · Tue Feb 21, 2012 1:28 pm

Kathy- great info! Thank you.

I'm glad that shared the part about 'weening' the TS's into the 7/8" high slots by using a larger one for a period of time.

Have you ever seen the comedian Tim Allen do the skit on his wife using his tools? "The empty ball-pean hammer silhouette on the peg board"
That's all I can picture when you mentioned "borrowing" his tools

Dolphins Fan · Wed Feb 22, 2012 1:42 am

Kathy I have read that birds like chickadees and titmice refuse hole sizes less than 1-1/2" initially. People offer them bird houses with 1-1/2" holes so they use them but switch to smaller holes after the first egg is laid and they then accept them. I don't think swallows are as fussy but it might be a good idea to keep the modified slot off until they begin nesting.

I know male house sparrows kill but do the females kill other birds as well? All I hear about are the males but I don't really hear anyone saying the females kill.

KathyF · Wed Feb 22, 2012 8:02 am

I'm going to wait & see what happens when they return. Apparently, a few house sparrows found refuge last year and nested in a nearby barn after my neighbors and I killed most of their kin that were trying to nest in our martin housing. I've seen 5 here so far....and I thought I was making such progress!

DRAT you Red Baron!!! Foiled again!
but I did trap her yesterday, so I expect to make some progress today.

Scott, yes, I DID see that episode - used to love to watch Tim 'the toolman' Taylor.

NJDevils - as to your question of the female being aggressive. I can't answer that with 100% certainty, but I can tell you from my observations - it is likely 'no'. The female is very elusive and I *always* see the males first, going in the cavities, perching on the nestbox & fighting with the other birds. In fact, when I had the incident where a male HOSP killed my baby tree swallows a couple of years ago, the male was the only one I saw - but I heard her cheeping in the tree when I went to kill him. I got her a couple of hours later.

I had a really hard time with one pair at a neighbor's house one time. Everytime I drove up, the pair would leave the martin house - even though they were sitting on eggs. So, I set a glue trap with the eggs on top, waited 20 mins and the MALE came back to check on the eggs. Caught him - never saw the female again. I guess they know in their species to protect the females at the cost of the males.

Louise Chambers · Wed Feb 22, 2012 9:37 am

Re female HOSP - One of the boxes we had up for tree swallows at PMCA's original office in Edinboro attracted chickadees. Box was a few feet from a window, and we all enjoyed watching the chickadees come & go.

Then one day we heard a lot of fussing and scolding from the chickadees, and saw a female house sparrow (no male around, just her) wanted the nestbox. When we went outside, we found several tiny chickadee nestlings dead on the ground

Our instant solution was to put a hole reducer onto the bluebird box, 1-1/8 inches kept the house sparrow out and let chickadees resume feeding their surviving young.

The female HOSP near the box and kept trying to get into the smaller hole, but could not. We never saw a male HOSP.

KathyF · Wed Feb 22, 2012 10:12 am

That just goes to show that you can never say "never" when it comes to birds / animals. There's a quote by W.C. Fields, "Never work with animals or children". There's a good reason - they're so unpredictable!

I kill them both, but I do keep more females in my repeating traps than I do males. They draw other females as well as males.

Another piece of advice once given to me was that you should, "kill the male and the female will leave the area". That's not 100% true either. I once killed 3 males on a martin house. The female would leave for a day or two after I would shoot a male, then she'd lure another one to the house. After the 3rd male, I finally got her. She was a true 'black widow'!

Bob Buskas · Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:55 pm

Hi NJDEVILS, welcome to the forum and nice to see a NHL fan on the forum. I was one of the faithful Edmonton Oilers fans back in the Gretzky days. Seems the NHL is too watered down in talent now, but thats not for discussing here. As for the Tree swallows, I host many here in Alberta, I tried a few of the 7/8 inch Sparrow entrances that Bernie my friend talks about. So far no success with the Tree Swallows entering, but I did see them use this entrance at Bernies site a few years ago. I will email Bernie so he can post back on this site. He is probably golfing in Arizona now. I do know that the Tree Swallows really like nesting in gourds as well as BB boxes so give that a try with a 1 1/4 inch entrance. I love the Tree Swallows almost as much as my Martins. Again welcome to the forum!

Bob Buskas · Wed Feb 22, 2012 5:57 pm

Hi NJDEVILS, welcome to the forum and nice to see a NHL fan on the forum. I was one of the faithful Edmonton Oilers fans back in the Gretzky days. Seems the NHL is too watered down in talent now, but thats not for discussing here. As for the Tree swallows, I host many here in Alberta, I tried a few of the 7/8 inch Sparrow entrances that Bernie my friend talks about. So far no success with the Tree Swallows entering, but I did see them use this entrance at Bernies site a few years ago. I will email Bernie so he can post back on this site. He is probably golfing in Arizona now. I do know that the Tree Swallows really like nesting in gourds as well as BB boxes so give that a try with a 1 1/4 inch entrance. I love the Tree Swallows almost as much as my Martins. Again welcome to the forum!

Dolphins Fan · Thu Feb 23, 2012 1:48 pm

Thank you Bob! The Oilers were a really good team with Gretzky back then. I've been a Devils fan since 1994 and love the team.

About the tree swallows not being able to enter your 7/8" entrance hole that goes back to my point earlier in maybe keeping that hole guard off until after the swallows lay the first egg. I have read chickadees will not use a box with a 1-1/8" hole but will use a box with a 1-1/2" hole. After they lay the first egg then people put the 1-1/8" hole guard on and they continue to use the box. A 1-1/4" hole would be no better than a 1-1/2" hole because house sparrows can enter.

As for the female house sparrows I tend not to shoot them because I have never seen them be aggressive towards other birds but sounds like it could happen. I think the only solution is to eliminate both of them because like Kathy said even if you eliminate the males the females will find and bring other males to your area. If you only eliminate the females the males will just find others in the area and bring them to your houses as well.