A few questions….

[Homer]

I am new to this board and as I do searches and reading, it occurs to me there is a lot of jargon and I generally don’t get it. I should eventually catch up, but right now I am running out of time to get ready for my 2022 upgrade and I have some basic questions.

1) What are wing entrapment protectors, and how do they work?

2) On trapping starlings: my job gives me large blocks of days off, but also occasionally requires me to be gone 6-8 days at a time. Given that, I assume I will have to rely on SREH to protect from starlings. It appears there is no repeating, resetting type of trap. If there is a thread or FAQ that just gives the basics of traps, please point me that direction.

3) Because of starlings I’m completely eliminating my house this year. When the martins come back they will just find the six old gourds that used to be mounted below the house, and nearby my new set up, which will be the full blown 24 gourd set up with all the upgrades. For better or worse, my old gourds hang below my homemade rack and swing freely. The martins used them, but seemed to prefer the house. It was my impression that there was no way the starlings would use them because they aren’t solidly mounted. No doubt pretty exhilarating during a storm in our ridge-top location. It seems a standard gourd rack today solidly mounts the gourds. Seems like that just gives the starlings an advantage again. What’s the word on that?

Thanks in advance. Again, if there’s a thread or FAQ that lays all this out just point me towards it.

[CTMartins]

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36e6hGBQgH0

2) See above

3) Starlings tend to roam

[Dave Reynolds]

.. Homer. .. Hope you enjoyed the video in the above text... A lot of the newer gourds come with wing entrapment guard already mounted or are a part of the gourd’s entrance. SREH plates that people install on their housing are sometimes very thin. So you can buy add on (plastic) Wing entrapment guards to screw on or rivet on the plates.. Hope it answers some of your questions ..

As far as the Starling, most people mount their SREH entrances 1/8 off of the entrance floor.. The Starling have longer legs than Purple Martins, so the Starling can’t squat down low enough to get in the entrance especially if the entrance has an Wing Entrance guard on it..

Keep asking questions , either I or someone else here will try our best, to help answer them..

Good Luck in 2022

Dave

[deancamp]

Homer, here is a nest trap I built and have had pretty good success with. I placed it against my barn away from the Martin housing. They go into the house/trap and fall into the wire cage at the bottom and it resets.

[Homer]

Thanks for the responses. And yes, that video was cute. But I get it now….

I will pay attention to what features the new gourds I buy come with. Ten plus years ago I read something about having the crescents 1/8” up to deter starlings. So I took all my entrances off the house and cut new crescents out of thick hard plastic. I made sure the size was perfect and mounted them 1/8” up. Starlings are not able to enlarge the holes. This worked until last year, as mentioned before. Its almost as if a local strain of smaller starling has evolved to torment me. The entrances didn’t even slow them long enough to let me draw a bead.

And that trap is awesome. I’m definitely a DIY guy. If you care to share the plans I would be all over it.

[flyin-lowe]

Some of it depends on how the starling populations are in your immediate area. For me, I literally have thousands of them. Sometimes they sit on the powerlines and they sag down several several feet from the weight. Yesterday there were parts of my yard that was completely covered in starlings, probably an area the size of 1/2 an acre, it looked like it was paved. I could never trap enough starlings to put a dent in the population so I just rely on SREH. I have been at this for over 15 years and have only had 1 starling ever breech any of my openings. I use crescents and Conley II entrances on my gourds and T14's.

I know from research and experience that you can make a dent in the local HOSP population. In a few years of trapping and shooting you can get them under control. I don't know now the home range of starlings is compared to HOSP's.

[deancamp]

The plans are actually on this website. From the home page click on navigate, then on education, click on the education menu and then click on DIY plans and go to traps. The name of it is NB Compact Trap. You can download a pdf from there. I'm not very computer smart so hopefully that will get you there. Good Luck!