Sparrow fight!

[Ginny Pres]

I’m so mad I can hardly see straight! As May progressed, it appeared our 14 Purple Martin apartments should be full again… except one space in the house. (Do Martins sometimes leave a space open for sparrows on purpose???) All through May we trapped and disposed of six sparrow couples (and caught more in another catcher). After eliminating each pair, we cleaned the space, hoping Martins would take it over (quickly), but no… another pair of sparrows move in. And so it went through May. As we got into June, the sparrows quit coming and it appeared Martins may actually move in. Some seemed to be spending nights in the space, but nothing more. (This is actually the first year we’ve been through this kind of issue. The Martins have usually taken advantage of us “kicking the sparrows out” of spaces.)

Now July… and a new pair of sparrows have moved in!!! We feel like the Martin babies are close enough to fledging that we don’t want to scare them by lowering and raising the house (several times), so I guess we’ll contribute to the nasty sparrow population. There have been several Martin-sparrow skirmishes, but one of the *#*# sparrows stay glued tight to the opening or inside much of the time. I guess our only hope now is that the Martin babies fledge and the sparrow babies are still there. We’ll get ‘em then!!!

[C.C.Martins]

Ginny,
Completely understand, its maddening. No martins don't want to leave room for a sparrow but they are so aggressive and sucessful at defending their site martins shy away.
A range of trapping options is important in their control, from a simple nest box with a van ert trap to universal sparrow traps and ground repeating traps.
But the equalizer is a pellet gun, a good one doesn't need to be expensive.
Feel your pain, had two sparrows at a site I can't shoot at. Males took over a gourd, nests full of growing martin chicks left and right of his gourd. Got one with an excluder gourd trap, his mate and the other male with the ST1. Thank God he went in, I couldn't lower the gourds again.
If you want something with just enough punch, good for back yard sparrow shooting look at the daisy 880 and 7.9 crossman match grade wadcutters. Turns them inside out, accurate to a dime.
Hope this helps and your birds ok.

[Ginny Pres]

C.C.,
Through April and May, we captured several sparrows in a Troyer style trap and the in-hole trap got rid of the individuals determined to use that space. (Love sitting on the deck seeing the sparrow go in and the orange appear in the door!) We don't think either of these would go in the Troyer trap and we're not comfortable moving the house down and up now. We're very rural, so hubby uses sparrows (and starlings) for 22 rifle target practice, but the bird does have to be in a decent location, and these two are not cooperating. I guess my post was more a vent than anything and we might still get lucky with the 22!

[C.C.Martins]

Vent away!!!!! Yes I just love seeing that door closed, it is soul deep satisfaction.
Yep, bet you get him with the 22. Seems like as the season progresses the dummer ones are weeded out and whats left are too dang smart.

[Ginny Pres]

We've been gone a few days, and know by now our baby Martins have all fledged, but the sparrow pair is still hanging tight, so we dropped the house to check it out. Four half grown sparrows will not see adulthood! Mamma sparrow is going nuts, in and out of her empty nest! (Maybe she'll have a nervous breakdown?) Only thing better would have been to get one or both of the parents. Upon finding the sparrow babies weren't close to fledging, perhaps we should have set the nest trap and got one at least, but we have a lot of stuff to do, so didn't think about it until too late. Sad time of year when the Martins head south.