Starling Revenge?

[Sharon - Central TX]

We have a pair of starlings building a nest in one of our tunneled Troyer HZ gourds with a Conley SREH entrance. We have tried to eliminate them but have been unsuccessful. We've removed the nest twice now and I was wondering if starlings do as house sparrows when their nests have been removed and take revenge?
We are waiting on some tunnel traps to arrive we ordered from Andy but when speaking with an employee, he said the starlings can open the door from the inside due to their long sharp beaks. He also mentioned that they have had several calls this year saying starlings are getting through the SREH entrances.
We don't normally have a problem with starlings and can usually scare them off, even if we don't hit them. But this pair is determined and smart. I have a window which I can normally take care of them from but they are onto me. All I have to do is start to raise it a little, and even though I am hidden behind the curtain, they take off. I don't think they would even go to a starling trap if we had one (which we used to but never caught anything but good birds). They are the only ones hanging around so a lot of starlings is not the issue.
Until the trap arrives, my main question is do they take revenge the same way house sparrows do when you keep removing their nest?
Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Sharon

[Aaron H]

Hello...Sharon,
Sorry to hear of your starling trouble, But yes i think the starlings
could be a lot of trouble to you. I don't know much about useing traps
on the starlings.
But what i do to take care of my trouble birds is to pull my car up
close to the martins house and use a towel over the side window
as a blind leaving the glass down just enough to get the gun barrel
through, the starlings don't think about the car being danger to them
but boy are they wrong
Don't know if this will help you but it sure has cost a lot of trash birds
at my house their life
Good luck to you this martin season...

[Sharon - Central TX]

Aaron,
I think I read of your solution a year or so ago. It sounds like a great idea if you can do that. However our pole is out in the back where no car can go ;-). But you did jog my memory as to another area we can hide behind on foot behind a fence so all is not lost. Thank you for the suggestion.
Sharon

[Louise Chambers]

Sharon,

Another thing to try is reducing distance between porch and bottom of entrance by adding a step - there have been some threads on this topic, saying it helps.

As for starlings lifting shutters, adding some weight to shutter helps, such as taping some metal to back of shutter so it falls faster and is harder for starlings to lift. When shutter is down, there should be no daylight showing below it.

[John Miller]

Speaking from my experience with a few pairs, they will not be as aggressive with revenge as the male sparrow, but the female may move to another gourd. you may want to let them build and progress until you can set a trap, just to keep them in the one gourd. the risk of having starlings there though is that they may attract more starlings to investigate, and those could disrupt a martin nest...

I think they will abandon if they advance to babies and the nest is then removed. I felt slightly remorseful...slightly...once for pulling starling babies out when I saw the female starling sulking on the house. then she flew over to a bird bath, took a long splash as if to say "i was tired of feeding those babies" and flew off. ha.

John M

[Sharon - Central TX]

Geeze Louise, I should have written directly to you (lol). If anyone would have the answer, it would be you. Thanks so much. I'll go look for those threads you were talking about.
Sharon

[Sharon - Central TX]

John,
We have some decisions to make I guess. Do we trap now or let them continue til eggs hatch? Well it looks like the rains are coming, so the decision doesn't have to be made immediately
Thanks for the suggestions. I went to the thread Louise mentioned and got some ideas. My fear at this point is they'll move to one of the unoccupied (or maybe even occupied?) gourds.
Sharon

[Louise Chambers]

If they have eggs at least they will stay in that one gourd - if so, wait for the trap to arrive.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Maybe you can wait until they have eggs, then lower the housing part of the way, and when it gets dark, you can plug the hole. The female will be brooding the eggs. The next day, you can take care of the starling. I plug the hole with a heavy stick that will go thru the entrance hole, push it all the way into the cavity. Try not to disturb the martins, do this quickly and quietly at night, or possibly about 20min before daylight