Sparrow Revenge

[Tim Mangan-Kansas]

After being a martin landlord for quite a few years, yesterday I learned a lesson the hard way. Early in the morning, I had three sparrows, two males and a female, land on my housing looking for a nesting cavity. Up to this point I have been sparrow free on my housing for several weeks. I baited my sparrow traps and hoped to be sparrow free in a short amount of time. It didn’t take more than 30 minutes and I had trapped one of the male sparrows in my repeating trap. Once he was trapped the female sparrow left. The remaining male sparrow spent the morning on and around my housing chirping away trying to draw in a female. Just after noon, I spotted this sparrow exit a martin nest and drop something to the ground. I went out to see what it was and discovered this:



This male sparrow had pecked and removed not one, but two martin eggs. For all these years, I had a misconception about, “Male Sparrow Revenge Syndrome”. Although I have never experienced it first hand, I thought male sparrow revenge took place AFTER his nest and/or eggs had been repeatedly removed from their cavity. I saw firsthand this was not the case. This male sparrow did not have a mate or a nest at my site. He just showed up and started destroying eggs.

The war was on between me and this male sparrow. I spent the rest of the day watching this sparrow chirping away while perched on our fence. Every time he flew over to my martin pole, I had to walk out of the house to scare him off. Unable to use a firearm at our location, how was I going to outsmart this evil, indiscriminate killing machine?

I had not yet disposed of the first male sparrow which was still in my repeating trap. (I was hoping he might draw in the second male sparrow but it did not happen.) I decided to remove the sparrow from my repeating trap and put him in my Blaines sparrow trap. After making the switch, I baited the landing platform on the Blaines trap with birdseed hoping to entice my killer sparrow. Twice, he went to the landing platform and ate the seed but would not enter the trap. The third time I baited the landing platform, I put more birdseed on the shelf across from the elevator part of the trap. He returned to eat the seed and just couldn’t resist the additional seed which was about three or four inches away from him. He entered, stepped on the elevator and down he went into the trap to join his buddy. The whole process took about four hours but mission accomplished.



The term, “Male Sparrow REVENGE Syndrome” is very misleading. There was no revenge involved with this sparrow. He just showed up and immediately started to wreak havoc on my colony. I learned my lesson. I will pay a lot more attention to any sparrow that shows up and not just the ones where I have torn out their nests.

[Fireflyfisherman]

They are awful birds. Martin and bluebird landlords have their work cut out for them. Kill them all. I'm slowly "educating" the neighbors about how awful these birds are but it is a slow process. Living in a neighborhood means the war never ends because those dang birds have tons of places to thrive, but it also means getting pretty good with the Dianna RWS 34.

[MamaBruff]

My goodness Tim, that is awful, dreadful, sad!! I am so sorry! That one egg looked like it had a pretty well developed embryo in it too! It could have grown up and returned to MY house next year! So I take it both parents were out feeding? All the adults were busy? I saw them running HOSP off last year at your place. The PMs will have to be more careful. No nests left unattended. All the more reason to be vigilant about the little buggers. Maybe you are right about the Sparrow Mafia there in Pittsburg. Take out one of the brothers, and you have war on your hands! I hope this is an isolated event.

[Thais G]

They will attack eggs without provocation as well (as they did to you), but the "syndrome" refers to a mass-attack they can perform if their next/eggs are threatened: they will empty out multiple cavities and kill babies sequentially, within a few minutes/hours. I am so sorry for your lost eggs...


I also detest their presence and so, trap and kill routinely; but, sincerely, I do not label them as "awful birds" in the sense that I do not believe anything in nature is "mean" or "awful". I just think they are in the wrong place (due to humans, of course, as always!!) and are following their natural instinct. They are invasive species: they do not belong here and so must be removed. (Would it not be great if we could train hawks and owls to have a selective taste just for these guys?!)

We have native birds who also destroy eggs (cheerful wrens, for example) and I actually lost my one [so eagerly awaited!!] martin nesting pair last year due to an aggressive martin sub-adult... (I am sure of it - the three birds fought constantly: two males, but only one female...)

I will continue to trap and kill HOSPs as indeed they are destructive and must be controlled/eradicated; but I still do it with a heavy heart as I wish I did not have the need to intervene this way due to human mismanagement of Nature...

I don't want to create a crazy controversial chain here, but I know that some of us out there still have this issue/internal conflict about "disposing" of them - I just wanted to politely share my feelings/thoughts as I know others feel the same way.

I don't want to undermine their damage - I really feel for the lost eggs and birds we so carefully take into our "houses" and hearts. I battle them every year, constantly... truly, non-stop... I just wished we could eradicate them all at once from the US so we would not have to continue to do this over years and years, repetitively, and have to teach future landlord generations of this unfortunate [necessary] practice...

[marcus]

That is way to bad, Tim. So glad you got him though. I caught a starling again this morning. Also shot a male sparrow here at our shop. I shot at a female and I am certain that she dropped but when I got up to where she had been, there were only a few drops of blood no bird. I walked up just after I shot so nothing had gotten her. I assume she revived and flew off.


Thais, I think your right. Sparrows are actually good birds in the wrong place. They're just another one of God's creation, although, do to man, they must be killed.

[Thais G]

Marcus, that is so nice that you took your family's colony and improved/grew it!! I hope one day my sons will do the same!
(First I have to get a colony going though!!)

[MamaBruff]

Tim- I just thought of something!! IF you have a neighbor or neighbors who have torn out HOSP nests, it may be the HOSP attacked your site because it offers a place for revenge... I think this happened to me when a HOSP came and destroyed my nest of 6 chickadees and their Mama. My neighbor had cleaned out her BB houses across the street. So the revenge came looking elsewhere. And not ONE but TWO male HOSP working together. This sound familiar? Good thing you were home or the damage could have been much worse. So Sorry.

[marcus]

MamaBruff,
You could be right. Different people talk about sparrow revenge, but I have never been able to connect sparrow damages to the destroying of a nest. I think most of my sparrow problems are that they just want a place to nest and will try to shove martins aside.

[mike2656]

Tim,

It happened to me with my first breeding pair. Only a landlord knows how bad it feels to lose eggs to these nasty little creatures. After they destroyed the eggs, like you say, it was "ON" I have shot and trapped them unrelentingly (glue traps work well in cavities) Sometimes, when I am feeling generous, I kill them before I throw them out.

Hope the rest of your season goes well. Keep after them!

Mike

[~Ray~Gingerich]

Sparrows are not the only egg smashers, last year my friend and I had just finished a nest check at Bombay Hook when we noticed a house wren messing with the houses and gourds, in just a few minutes she threw out and broke a mess of eggs, could not chase her away as she just flew to another rack .

[Okie]

Some call them flying rats. I call them flying rabbits when I figured out one female raises 16 to 28 babies a year. Iv'e trapped 48 & it will take only 3 females to replace them all UGH No end endeavor. PLEASE DO NOT RE-HOME THEM DESTROY THEM If you cannot do the duty, take them to a rehabilator to feed to their raptors.

[Tim Mangan-Kansas]

Mary, I did a nest check after the terrible weather we had for several days. The eggs in 10 of the 16 nests with eggs were stone cold. I only have 3 or 4 females continuing to incubate. For the most part, my martins are acting as they do when they first arrive. They are here a few hours in the morning and then they take off for the day not returning in mass till evening. Any sparrows showing up during the day have free reign. The only consolation is, I am hoping the eggs this sparrow destroyed were no longer viable.

I will be anxious to read any reports from landlords who also experienced this prolonged bad weather earlier this week regarding what they are finding during nest checks.

[Dave Reynolds]

Tim --- You said the eggs in 10 out of 16 nest were stone cold... Do you throw them out and hope the Martins re-nest ? That's is a lot of eggs that will not hatch... that is what happen to me last year... The cold and raining weather effected the incubation time, So sorry to hear..

Dave

[LonesomeDuck]

I took care of 4 sparrows and 1 starling yesterday, was thinking about your post! We will win the war in the long run somehow.

[Thais G]

Hi Okie, I do destroy them, but, that being said, I would indeed like to give them to someone to feed raptors - I tried some years ago and never found out about anyone or how I could do that (everyone who I inquired with said it was too dangerous for them to use the birds and they rather use captivity-bred mice.)

Has anyone here ever managed to give these sparrows away with that purpose? I gave up long ago and I was just wondering.

(Also, because I manage two very-visible-public-sites, it would be great to be able to "compensate" the challenge sometimes I get to explain HOSP control - i.e.: some people just do not understand/agree with the practice.. - if I could at least have a purpose for these trapped birds, it would make my tiresome "controversial conversations" potentially, slightly, easier....)

[MamaBruff]

Thais,
Our Nature Center here in Joplin has several constrictor snakes who accept dead food. (mice) The resident Kestrel (permanent wing injury) currently eats dead frozen (thawed) mice. The naturalist said there were concerns about diseases from live HOSP, but if I would dispatch them and freeze them, they would accept them, as freezing kills any diseases... So I would imagine the 4 HS I have in my Blaine's will be fed to the snakes... Oh well. IDK if I want to mess with all that...

[Forum Admin]

Back to the topic of House Sparrow Revenge, that still is a good term to describe what is very likely to happen if a landlord removes HOSP nests with eggs or babies—new landlords or trying to be landlords need to know that pulling nests is not an effective OR safe way to deal with house sparrows. Pulling nests only moves the HOSP to a new cavity, maybe one that martins are using. Leave nests intact until both of the HOSP pair have been trapped or shot - especially if nests contain eggs or nestling house sparrows. Nestling hosp can be moved to another HOSP nest where the landlord is working to trap the adults - the sound of a hungry baby gets their attention.

We all know that HOSP are just not safe to have anywhere around martins, bluebirds, etc. One year at the PMCA's site, a bluebird box had nesting Black-capped Chickadees. We heard the chickadees scolding, obviously very upset, went to check, and found many tiny nestling chickadees dead below the box, and a female House Sparrow on roof, keeping parents from feeding remaining nestlings. There was no male House Sparrow around - she wanted that box.

Our immediate solution to protect nestlings and let parents feed was to install a hole reducer, about 1-1/8 inches, on outside of box. HOSP cannot enter that size. And once parents could feed again, we worked to get rid of the female HOSP. A good example of how damaging HOSP are, both males and females, paired and unpaired.

[marcus]

Forum Admin,
In your case, was that sparrow doing that because her nest was threatened or was she just doing it to nest in that box?

[Tim Mangan-Kansas]

Tim --- You said the eggs in 10 out of 16 nest were stone cold... Do you throw them out and hope the Martins re-nest ? That's is a lot of eggs that will not hatch... that is what happen to me last year... The cold and raining weather effected the incubation time, So sorry to hear..

Dave

Dave, no I did not remove the eggs as it is possible the eggs are still good. I really don't like messing with eggs until such time when I know for sure what is going on.

[Forum Admin]

Marcus, the female house sparrow was not defending a nest, she was trying to claim the nestbox being used by the chickadees, and she was doing this on her own, no male house sparrow was ever seen.