Three Starling Invasions of Conley II Troyer Horizontals

[Scully]

Heres a situation I haven't had to face in about seven years.

When I evicted a pair of starlings from one school colony this past weekend I was ready to chalk it up as an anomaly. To my knowledge too they had invaded an empty gourd.

I used a method Bernie Nickolai suggested once; destroy the eggs/young and they will leave. So far seems to have worked....



Just yesterday (Tuesday) I went to another elementary school and found TWO starling pairs chasing the martins around the rack

One martin nest in a Troyer has already been built over by the starlings. Here's that pair, the male starling singing to the female in the center of this photo. The Troyer they have taken over is on the lower right.



The male martin perched on the predator guard above the entrance is still hopelessly attempting to defend the gourd. His mate is missing and of course one must presume the worst.

The Troyer on the lower left of the photo is the one with a male martin at the entrance looking in. The nest has two eggs pecked and destroyed on the inside, the martins acting nervous and flighty. All the gourds on that rack are/were occupied, including two more Troyers.

I have no Troyer entrance traps, I will order some today.

Our last starling invasion was years ago; a starling getting into a crescent Supergourd with the old aluminum porches. On THAT occasion the starling had to exert visible effort to get in, wiggling in on its side, feet waving in the air.On the Conley II the starling enters with little apparent effort, crouches down and walks right in.

However they may be working elsewhere, this entrance is not working here. The problem is I have more than forty of these inadequate Conley II Troyers in my possession and out on the racks. A considerable investment.

I took this photo to show someone how to set a mousetrap for sparrows while blocking the entrance against martins, but it also shows the configuration of these entrances vis a vis the porch.



Are there any modifications that can be done to render these things more starling-proof? Otherwise the ones we have will all be withdrawn from use after this season is over.

I know starling breaches can occur with ANY entrance, but so far our S&K crescents and Modified excluders have an impeccable record. Three starling invasions occurring at two different sites in quick succession, all in Conley II's, plus the ridiculous ease in which they appear to enter, is all a bit much.

Thanks,

Mike Scully

[Peggy Riley]

Sorry to see this, Mike. My only suggestion would be to add something to the porch to raise it a little. Another thought would be to add a wing entrapment guard to the outside if you can't put it inside That should make it harder for the starling to get in.

I was able to use the BO9 entrance (with entrapment guard) that I had cut out to add a tunnel. I just glued it to the WDC on the outside and it worked.

Peggy

[Scully]

Thinking on this, I'm wondering if just sawing off the porches flush with the faceplace will work.

[Peggy Riley]

Couldn't hurt to try since we know the martins can enter. The small piece of plastic left would be enough to cling. I'd try that and watch.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

I am wondering if it would help to narrow the entrance to about 1.9inches? If you could narrow it (maybe the way that you used to keep out the martins), or I would use some blocks of sintra or wood and caulk them to the entrance to make them more narrow?

If the starlings are turning sideways to begin the entry, then making the entrance more narrow would prevent them from turning sideways. If they are entering straight into the entrance, then there is no way to stop a small starling.

I know that they easily enter my 2in tunnels, so they surely could enter a 2in wide hole, or even 1.9inches wide.

I think that this would eliminate many of the breaches.

I use the sideboards on many of my tunnels, and the martins have no problem at all with them, the sideboards do not affect the martins in any way except the sideboards use some of the porch room.

[Scott D.- La]

Mike,
I would raise the porch flush as recommended. I would then make these Wing Entrapment Guards flush with the top of the entrance to deny the use of leverage on the tunnel. I will be making a instruction post as soon as I get the time on how to make these guards. Martin's can easily get through but hopefully, it will block most Starling's.

[Matt F.]

Mike,
The Conley II entrances are definitely easy for the Martins to traverse, however, their achilles heal is - they lack the patented Excluder pegs - more specifically, the taller pegs of the original Excluder.
In my opinion, the easiest fix, would be to go ahead and open up those Conley IIs, and slap some plastic Excluder plates on there.

[Matt F.]

Scott brings up a great point as well.
Are your current Conley II entrances the ones with, or without, the factory wing entrapment guard?

[John Miller]

Scott's wing guards should help greatly. alternative would be, as Matt said to go to excluder plates...I'd prefer excluder II. but if you go with plates, make a wing guard arch of PVC, because the horizontal gourds are especially prone to entrapment, in my observation, because they funnel fighting martins toward the entrance. One challenge this season will be that once starlings enter, they "may" not be stopped by raising the porch alone. I learned this observation from Thurman Seber. I have not thought up much of anything on my own..ha

[Scully]

Thanks for the suggestions all

These entrances have no wing entrapment guards.

I'm inclined to run out there and spend 20 minutes with a hacksaw this afternoon removing the four porches.

Any thoughts appreciated.

Mike Scully

[Matt F.]

Let us know what happens Mike.
That will be interesting to see if the porch removal does the trick.

[John Miller]

If you whip out the hack saw..i think I recall that Emil has a friend who keeps his porches at one inch or so..enough for martins but helps deter starlings. Emil can confirm.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

John, you are correct, its a neighbor, he uses entrance that are slightly enlarged, his porches are about 3/4in wide to about 1inch, and he has never had a starling enter his gourds. We do not have as many starlings as some people do, I only trapped about 20 starlings this year, and haven't seen any for a few days.

If I was in Scully's position, that is another thing to try. If it works here, it may work for him.

When a starling comes, he hangs on for a few seconds, the flies away and often goes to his traps. They are not comfortable hanging onto that small porch, so they leave. They usually make no attempt to enter.

[Don & Danielle]

I had similar trouble last year with the Conley II entrance, both at my home colony & a small colony I am managing at a near-by elementary school. One or two starlings seemed able to semi-easily enter & exit. I changed the school colony to crescent entrances, and harassed the starlings so much at my home colony that they left. No starlings after that.

This spring, I shimmed up the porches on my Troyer gourds with a piece of of plexiglass, to where the bottom of the porch is flush with the bottom of the "indentation" at the bottom center of the Conley II entrance. I saw some starlings try to enter these modified gourds earlier this year, and all were unsuccessful. Likewise, at the school colony, similarly modified gourds have had no starling breeches. Martins seem to have no trouble with the modified entrances.

Unfortunately for me, the porch shims are now falling off - I must have not prepped the surfaces adequately or maybe I used the wrong adhesive. So, many of my Troyer gourds are now back to "stock" form. I hope the starlings have moved on.

[Penny Briscoe]

Two seasons ago I had starlings take over a gourd. It had a round entrance hole. After the starling laid her eggs, I inserted some of that sticky mouse/rat paper, cut into 1-inch squares and ringed her eggs with it. It may sound cruel, but she HAD to go in to her eggs, and when she did, she got all stuck up. I lowered the gourd and put an end to her misery. Her mate never returned. I have since switched to various kinds of starling resistant openings. I never had starling problems in my metal houses before, but this year, I modified my metal houses with 6-inch square nest boxes to give double compartments for the martins; unfortunately, that move also met with interest by the starlings. When I saw I was going to have problems, I added crescent and excluder doors in place of those with round openings. Believe it or not, after returning from a four-day trip away from home, I found a starling nest with three eggs in one of the compartments with a crescent opening. I destroyed the nest and eggs and have not seen the starlings since (two days), but I am now really on the look out because if they got into one of these openings, that means they can get into the others. I will use my sticky mouse/rat paper procedure again, as there is no concern with martins entering a starling nest that has eggs, and the starling will be desperate to get in, despite possibly recognizing that there is something "fishy."

[Matt@atx]

Im sorry to hear about this Starlings Mike. I hope you will get your gourd traps soon and catch them. Im sure you cannot shoot a pellet gun where they are at as well so they are taking advantage.

Considering the month, these gourd traps ought to come pretty quick to you and I love that Sparrow trap using a mouse trap. I was thinking about trying it in the middle of a Sparrow nest in a gourd which should keep The martins out.

Those gourd traps are so simple and work well. The Martins line up on this power line close by to watch the excutions everytime I catch a sparrow with one.
They know what Im doing but not how Im doing it so they seem curious but in no way are they scared by the event. This Im sure of. Hers to catching those Starlings soon Mike and i hope you post photos when you do. Good to hear from you again and sorry for the extra work these pests are causing you right now.

[Scully]

Photojournal of a failed experiment

Over to the elementary school with a ruler and a hacksaw, cutting the four Troyer porches at the third rib (about 3/4")....







The martins returned right off, and after a bit of initial confusion figured it out pretty quick....





Then came the starlings....







This is what the south end of a starling squeezing into a Conley II looks like...





Today went to the starlings....





Not to worry, not eggs as yet so I have some time to extract some useful observations out of that pair. For example, will she still be able to enter if I raise the remaining porch level.

And then if I attach a modified excluder plate (probably the most doable solution to me given the 40 plus Troyers we have) will she STILL get in.

And then, at the end, the trap, and a swift demise.

Meanwhile the abbreviated porches must surely give some extra protection to the other three Troyers on the rack.

Mike Scully

[Peggy Riley]

Great shots Mike!!! Your plan sounds good.

[Bill Hyde]

A year ago I noticed a starling entering a Conley-2 entrance here. But someone on this Forum offered a suggestion for preventing that from happening. I tried it and it worked (no more starling intruders). That gourd became home to our first pair of SY martins to complete a nesting cycle.

Take a piece of flat plastic (I used sawed off pieces of s&k entrances) and glue it in place (I used push pins into 1/4-inch holes I drilled) so that the porch-to-entrance distance is reduced to zero. It worked like a charm.

This past winter I made similar adjustments to all my Troyer Conley-2 entrances. I used a Dremel tool to carve out a little bit of plastic where there is a dip in the Conley-2 entrance. That seems to have done the trick, as no starling has successfully entered any of my 16 "adjusted" Conley-2 entrances. Quite to the contrary, the starlings are leaving my gourd rack alone altogether. I wish there was a fix to keep out sparrows too.

P.S. I'm still using three supergourds painted sky blue, as you suggested some time back as a deterrent for sparrows. So far, so good.

[Scott D.- La]

I had a thought the other day about putting a hump on the porch, a small distance from the front of the entrance and as wide as the entrance. Martin's can navigate just about anything and squat all the way to their bellies and get in. They would have to squat and navigate the hump to get in the entrance. If you decide to use the Modified Excluder, you most certainly need the Wing Entrapment guards on them as they are notorious for entrapment. I know of one landlord who installs a Clinger in front of the Conley 2, maybe he will chime in, as it worked at keeping Starling's out for him! Here is the Guard for the Modified Excluder. Keep it flush to the top of the entrance.