Year two, 6-gourd in East Winnipeg

[atrauzzi]

Hello to the forum again! Happy 2024!

This is my year two followup to my post from last year.

It's been a long winter, but spring set in properly last week and I wasted no time getting the gourds up and filled with pine straw. My JBL speaker is pointed upwards and playing at max volume from 4:30AM, through the day. My hopes are up given that I've got a much earlier start this year, but I know there's a chance I may still not be successful and that it's really just up to nature.

Some sparrows were trying to set up in the gourds yesterday, so I lowered them down and stuffed the entrances for the day which seemed to get them moving along. I'll continue checking just to make sure they don't try again. At least I have evidence that birds can get in and out, and that the gourds are cozy!

I wish I could convince martins at other nests a few kilometers from my house to come check things out!

Words of encouragement and continued advice always welcome.

[randyM]

Welcome back to the Forum!

The martins that are currently finding their way to your latitude are 5 year-old birds or older, which are typically the first of the season to arrive in respective areas. Most of the early returning martins likely are headed to the colony they were at in previous years. Around May 15 until late June in your area a wave of second year birds (last year's hatched young) will arrive that are not yet bonded to a specific colony. These young birds are likely the ones that will stop in and check out your colony for nesting. However, older earlier arriving after second year birds may be looking for a new colony site as well if the colony they were at in previous years was removed, is now infested with starlings and sparrows, or if the martin had poor nesting success at a previous site. You are doing the right thing by playing the dawn song all day and continue to do so through June. Just make sure to trap/eliminate sparrows and starlings (chasing them away or temporarily plugging holes does not work as they are very persistent and nest multiple times throughout the season) and if any tree swallows arrive, keep them from your martin housing by offering a single unit gourd about 5-6' above the ground within 30' of your martin housing.

Best of luck to you this season, and please keep us posted as the year progresses.

Randy

[SSMartin]

Randy nailed it with great advice and information. Definitely keep blasting the Martin sounds and you never know who moved away or didn’t maintain their housing which may work to your benefit this season.

You seem to have realistic expectations and you are correct it can be hit or miss with these birds convincing them to stay sometimes. Wishing you the best and please report back with any news.

[jhcox]

Yea keep playing that Dawn song. They less than 2% of the fledglings for any colony return to that site I’m guessing to prevent in breeding. So those young’s that make it back have to go somewhere to start a new colony or add to the population of a current colony that still has room. I have 80 cavities and had 74 or 76 nesting pairs last year so I’m pretty much full up so the overflow of Martin have to go somewhere. Not to mention the nearly 400 that were fledged from just my colony most find house of this year. So the birds and out there isg have get them attracted to you site. Once you get a couple nesting pairs they will do the rest of the work for you when it comes to attracting more. And the numbers will go up quickly year after year. And once you get them, your problem is figuring out how many you can successfully landlord once you get that goal met you’re helping your neighbor

[atrauzzi]

A small update of things as of today.

As many here predicted, I've been in a steady battle with my local sparrows. Cleaning out nests from my gourds has become daily ritual, just to make sure they don't get too much of a foothold. My goodness are those creatures efficient! No eggs thankfully, but I think they're just rebuilding to spite me.
I did a little test and cleared all the pine straw out of one gourd. Sure enough, they stopped trying to build a nest in that one and put all their effort into the remaining two that still had straw. I doubt that would have discouraged them if all of the gourds were empty, but it was interesting to learn more about how they prioritize.

Anyway, after a couple days of our little game, I caved and ordered two PMCA excluder traps which just arrived today and I've immediately installed. I've placed the traps in the two gourds that the sparrows have favoured the most (South-East facing). The other four gourds for now are blocked off. I'm sure I'll end up ordering more traps. If not this year, then next.

I saw two adult martins at the nest at the nearby bio reserve. It's hard to tell if they were setting up or just passing through as I haven't seen them since. We've had cold rainy weather and there hasn't been much insect activity. I feel like our conditions still aren't quite favourable for martins yet, so I am hopeful that I'm still in the running.

I think my next few days will be spent trapping sparrows and figuring out how to humanely scare them off. Suggestions welcome!

[C.C.Martins]

Thats a good trap, had some luck with that one. Sat 3 hours once watching a sparrow dance around the trap gourd. Finally went in! And out. 6 times. Turns out the trip arm was too close to the gourd porch, bent it up and nabbed it.

[atrauzzi]

I'm totally amazed and I have to agree. In the time between making my last post and just now, I looked out my window to see two red dots looking back at me! Both traps had caught sparrows in their respective gourds.

I went outside, lowered my rack down and tapped on the gourds a little and sure enough, when I unscrewed the tops and stood away, the birds launched out as quickly as they could get away.

That's about one to two hours from receiving the package, installing and catching. So a very effective design. It's yet to be seen if they will try to come back though. If the other posters are right, I guess I might have to go through a few rounds of this?

Is there anything I should be doing while the sparrow is still in the gourd? I'd ideally like humane solutions, but I realize this is a tricky subject. To that point.... C.C. Martins, your signature is ominous in the context of this thread. But if there's anything I should be doing to "rattle them up" a little...?

[C.C.Martins]

They will be right back. The only solution is a terminal one im afraid. You could waste your gas and drive 5 miles away to let them go but that is pointless. Some landlords would not appriciate that. And they may very well beat you back. And smarter. They now have graduated to a PHD in traps.
Suggest this...if sucessful later. Stick the whole gourd in a mesh bag, close it tight, open the lid. It may burrow down if it doesn't come right out. Get the bird wrapped in the mesh, remove the gourd.
Swing that bird in the bag against something hard real quick...its over in seconds.
They will never stop, the decision is yours my friend. They are sucessful for a reason.
I'll add a PS: i too relaxed off season a few years ago. I thought I'm at peace with them, season is over. Big mistake, the next year they came in force. Now I trap all year round.

[atrauzzi]

Thank you C.C, all valuable information and what to prepare for. I take it all seriously and will escalate as necessary.

I reset the traps after letting the two out and since my last post, nothing has dared enter the gourds since. While I do feel it's a matter of time, perhaps the encounter of being trapped and so close to a human scared the two sparrows I've been sparring with off?

The next things for me to consider are whether I need to remove the traps from the two and the blocking I have in the other four gourds and when might be a good time to do so. In the meantime, I make sure to check the traps multiple times throughout the day. I have this fear that I'll trap a curious martin and scare it off as well

Went for a bike ride and saw six scouts at the nearby bioreserve today. Stopped to watch and listen to them for a while and to watch their acrobatics.

Truly amazing creatures. Could watch them for hours and hope to one day from my back window!

[Jones4381]

Shooting is option 1 for me but I'm a poor shot. Machete is option 2 if I only injured the bird with shot. I came from ringing necks on chickens and and an axe. Feel good about your feelings of compassion as that's a good thing but execution is the method I agree with in here if you desire hosting cavity nesting birds.

I'd like to also say to those on the N. fringe range, I find you all amazing and the birds that travel that great distance for breeding even greater... I applaud your persistence and sympathize with your position in having to kill so others might live...I hope you're successful and find peace in how you take care of the invasive birds that cause great harm to others.

[C.C.Martins]

Thank you C.C, all valuable information and what to prepare for. I take it all seriously and will escalate as necessary.

I reset the traps after letting the two out and since my last post, nothing has dared enter the gourds since. While I do feel it's a matter of time, perhaps the encounter of being trapped and so close to a human scared the two sparrows I've been sparring with off?

The next things for me to consider are whether I need to remove the traps from the two and the blocking I have in the other four gourds and when might be a good time to do so. In the meantime, I make sure to check the traps multiple times throughout the day. I have this fear that I'll trap a curious martin and scare it off as well

Went for a bike ride and saw six scouts at the nearby bioreserve today. Stopped to watch and listen to them for a while and to watch their acrobatics.

Truly amazing creatures. Could watch them for hours and hope to one day from my back window!

I trust you will get your martins sir. I did the same thing years ago, would walk a local park during lunch, sit on a bench and watch the martins play way up high above a colony near by.
You could just disable the trap with a clothes pin or a black paper holder (dont remember the name-wanna say alligator clip?) That way when the martins do show, its safe. When the sparrows rear their ugly head again, remove the clip. Your mind will be at rest.
Its a touchy situation, sparrows are not deterred by much. And any investigating martin is skittish and easily run off.
I am fairly rabid about sparrow control, have become hard when it comes to them...please don't take me wrong and impose my thoughts on you. I am a big softy but ill kill them quick and painless as fast as they come.

[DeeCee]

Another way to dispose of sparows is to use a can of ether, AKA engine starting fluid. I purchased a can at Princess Auto and was relatively inexpensive. If you can get the sparrow into a plastic bag, spray a few shots of ether into the bag. Its all over within a few minutes. Sparrow goes to sleep and doesn't wake up. After doing this, I put a pellet into the bird as well,,,just to be on the safe side. Hope this helps Atrauzzi.

[randyM]

I checked my tree swallow houses yesterday and found a nearly complete sparrow nest in one of the nest boxes. When I pulled the sparrow nest out of the box there was a partially built tree swallow nest underneath with a dead female swallow in the nest. Her head was partly defeathered with dried blood. I am quite certain the perpetrator was a male house sparrow. This is not the first time this has happened at my site over the years. I've opportunistically shot 6 starlings and 3 sparrows this spring with my shotgun. I will be shifting from opportunistic shooting to trapping and actively hunting sparrows this weekend. If you go through the effort to trap sparrows, please do not release them alive. If you release them, even if they don't come back to your site and wreak havoc, they will certainly find another site to cause problems. Native cavity nesting bird populations are in sharp decline, house sparrows and starling populations unfortunately are not. Please do your part to help reverse these trends.

Randy

[C.C.Martins]

Dang, sorry about that TS. Describes a HOSP mo perfectly.
Wish you the best on your quest, believe flyin-lowe also switched from a shotgun approach to a more targeted pellet gun route.
We get emotionally invested in our birds and will do many, many things for their comfort, safety and survival while in our care. HOSP and starlings get no rest, no breaks, and when I get the chance, feel zero remorse. Starling was on my neighbors gourd rack 2 days ago, calling and posturing at a cavity. It didn't get in (I checked) but still was harassing the martins who were incubating 4 eggs.
Pulled the truck up into his driveway and shot it off the rack.
They won't stop.

[atrauzzi]

I'll probably look at some kind of chemical based option for the next sparrows I catch. I completely agree with what you guys are saying and I certainly don't relish it, but the fact that they're invasive species says it all. That said, I don't keep any firearm or pellet gun, full-on city boy here.

No sparrows have returned over the last week, so I've rotated out my trapped gourds to different positions on the rack and plugged them so that no martins get accidentally scared off. I now have two open non-trapped gourds ready for martins to show up.

Subadults are still only half way up Minnesota according to the scout arrival study map, so I'm not sure when they'll make it to my area.

[C.C.Martins]

Yep, I get it. Some of our areas are gun free zones, I cannot shoot at our public site for example, so trapping is my go to. Iv got to be discreet at home as well. Nothing supersonic, below the sound barrier to avoid that telling crack. Yet many times iv gone well beyond discreet as in the case of that starling.
Its distasteful, yet necessary. Ether was suggested, good route.
I truly hope you will get your martins, they will be in good hands.
As your colony grows so too trapping options. Say for example your gourd rack is full, (this season God willing), you will need that gourd space for a pair. A stand alone nest box trap is excellent. Research some trap options and see what fits your location and budget.
Best,
Tom

[atrauzzi]

Well, I suppose today is the day I passed my initiation, a rite of passage for all PM colonists.

I saw two sparrows inspecting my un-trapped gourds this morning. So I went outside and unblocked my trapped ones and blocked the un-trapped ones. Sure enough, they switched to the trapped ones and within an hour I had caught both in separate gourds by swapping them after a catch.

I suspect the 2nd I caught was the male because he was frantically pacing from tree, to porch, calling at the top of his voice and was much more aggressive while in the gourd.

Anyway, they are dealt with, and I suspect I might have another few couples to deal with in the immediate vicinity. I'd gone basically a week without any attempts though, so the trapping is definitely having an impact. Hoping this latest turn will be all that's needed to secure a bit of peace this season.

[C.C.Martins]

Well done!!

[randyM]

I had some luck trapping and shooting HOSP this weekend....3 males and 2 females....still have a few pairs to remove as I only have 2 traps and about 7 HOSP nests in some of my 120 tree swallow houses. When I catch a sparrow in a nest box that has a started HOSP nest, I terminate the sparrow and place the carcass of the deceased individual back into the nest box with the trap. The mate of the deceased individual typically goes into the nest box within an hour to check on its mate. Works nearly every time to trap both individuals of a pair.

Best of luck to all this season.

Randy

[atrauzzi]

Took down the gourds this past weekend. Obviously no martins this year, but I kept them up as long as I think made sense, although they've been long gone for weeks now I suspect.

I know I'm doing this on hard mode given that I don't have any large bodies of water immediately near my house and this is all in my back yard. I also suspect that the martin population in my area isn't as strong as it might have once been at some point in the past.

Hoping that sticking at things will get me results eventually, fingers crossed for 2025, I'll start up a year three post in April or May! Suggestions welcome in the interim.