HOSP attack on my TRES this morning-GRAPHIC photo.

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:10 am

It took him less than 30 mins to destroy my brood of 5.

I woke up and had coffee on the deck. I heard the house sparrow in the trees and watched the Mom & Dad tree swallows chase him off their nest box a couple of times. After he got quiet, I thought he had left and came inside to go to work (I work from home), thinking that I would check on the box every 30 minutes or so.

When I went back out in 30 minutes, I saw him fly out of the TRES box. I decided at that point to set the trap on the front of the box, thinking that him seeing me out there would make him go away. But I was too late. :(

When I got out to the box with the ladder, this is what I saw. I'm so angry and sad right now, I can't stand it.

I guess the only good thing is that the adults have survived, but have since abandoned the site - not that I blame them.

Louise Chambers · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:14 am

Kathy,

So sorry about your TRES nestlings, you are doing your best and I am sure you'll get the house sparrows. And it's good that the adults survived,too. We all know how bad AND mad you feel about this loss.

Louise

Matt@atx · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:17 am

How horrible Kathy,

I am sorry that this cruel act happened to your babies. You say a Sparrow did this to Tree Swallow babies in 5 minutes?

Guest · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:18 am

aw Kathy,
that is just awful. Sorry to hear this.
I HATE those S&S!!!

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:21 am

Thanks, Louise,
It's hard to believe that I've killed 20 house sparrows this season around this area and destroyed over 50 eggs, cumulating into hours of work & effort. Yet, in less than 30 minutes one male showed up, targeted this nest, and has caused such devastation & loss. I'm sending this picture to all my friends who think I'm just a little bit obsessive about my HOSP hunting.

Maybe they'll understand now.

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:24 am

Matt@atx wrote:How horrible Kathy,

I am sorry that this cruel act happened to your babies. You say a Sparrow did this to Tree Swallow babies in 5 minutes?

Thanks, Matt - He did this in less than 30 minutes. I had to go to work, but vowed to check every 30 minutes.

Their little bodies were still warm when I got out there.

Of course, since I set the trap, he has left the area now, and I'm left with 2 very bewildered Tree swallow parents.

Julio · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:39 am

Hey Kathy, im really sorry to hear about this. Just recently i lost 3 woodpecker eggs to starlings. The adult woodpeckers have since taken up residence in another box concealed by a tree. You can try placing another nestbox in a place that is less obvious, and please Kathy get rid of those ..bas.tard sparrows.

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 10:59 am

Julio wrote:Hey Kathy, im really sorry to hear about this. Just recently i lost 3 woodpecker eggs to starlings. The adult woodpeckers have since taken up residence in another box concealed by a tree. You can try placing another nestbox in a place that is less obvious, and please Kathy get rid of those ..bas.tard sparrows.

Thanks, Julio. Much to his dismay, that little @#%#$ has made the #1 issue to resolve today - at the top of my list.

I've killed 20 HOSP this year - don't know where they keep coming from. I'm starting to get a little bit paranoid and feel like this may have been revenge for a nest I pulled yesterday at a neighbor's house 7 miles away.

Julio · Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:13 am

No chance of that especially 7 miles away, its is simply a small local population nearby. I personally burn through 5000 pellets and a new riffle every few years practicing. I can hit the little $%^&*( 150 feet away. If you can practice as much as possible on your marksmanship skills and get a good scope. I have severely limited the starling population within 10 suburban acres of me, even so with the part time AAA around here i get a few intruders.

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:31 am

Just killed the female HOSP with my pellet gun. Was hoping to trap her, but such is the necessity of things.

CMF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:50 pm

So sorry Kathy, had the same horrible occurance two weeks ago with one of the BB boxes. The HS killed the young in the box and built a next on top. The reeking, fermenting, mite infested dead did not seem to bother the female house sparrow.
CMF

sheila&dwayne · Mon Jun 15, 2009 2:50 pm

we have been using a sparrow resistant entrance this year on all our TRES nest box's and so far with great results. Mr sparrow can not get in and the TRES seem to know it. it's an obround hole 7/8" x 2 1/4" long. try it even if you have eggs or young now you can change the round hole out. it took ours about 15 mins to figuire it out....works great. good luck

KathyF · Mon Jun 15, 2009 8:59 pm

Thanks, Sheila & Dwayne - I had heard about these entrances before, but had not had the chance to try them this year. I am going to be changing them over to these new slots.

Do you know if bluebirds can get into these entrances?

Bernie Nikolai · Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:53 pm

Kathy, bluebirds cannot get into the sparrow resistant entrances. They only protect tree swallows from sparrows. They are too small for bluebirds or martins to enter.

Again the dimensions are 7/8" tall by 2 1/4" wide. The width isn't critical, but the height is. It doesn't matter if the ends of the slot are rounded or square.

Since putting them on all my tree swallow entrances, not one sparrow has entered, and not tree swallow baby or adult has been killed in 3 years. I have about 15 pairs of tree swallows around my martin colony.

All you do is enlarge the wooden entrance of the house and screw on a plastic plate with the right sized dimension hole/slot in it.

Matt F. · Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:54 am

Hi Kathy.

I'm so sorry for what happened. I know it was quite upsetting.

Good job on "taking out the trash", with your pellet gun.

sheila&dwayne · Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:02 am

Bernie i think i got the idea from one of your prior posts. great idea. i have seen the plastic plate in the wildbird store so they are availiable commercially now. I put a spot from youtube on the forum on how to make these. There should be no reason now to have round holes for your TRES anymore.....you can change out the holes at anytime they will figuire it out.

sheila&dwayne · Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:08 am

watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joOET1fQjxM

KathyF · Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:17 am

sheila&dwayne wrote:watch this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joOET1fQjxM

Thanks for the video - this was very, very helpful - the most eye-opening part was the part about making the 'plate' separately then just putting it on after rough-cutting the door itself to keep the sparrow from peeking in the box.

I have 2 other TRES nestboxes ready to fledge and 1 pair sitting on eggs. I don't think I want to mess with the ones that are ready to fledge, but I'm going to make one of these for the egg-sitting pair. I couldn't bear to see this again.

thanks again!

sheila&dwayne · Tue Jun 16, 2009 10:24 am

We also lost some nesting TRES a few years ago....HOSP killed the TRES on the nest. I did notice that they mentioned to increase the hole size for TRES to 15/16 of an inch from 7/8. Good luck...be patient when you change it, they will get in.

KathyF · Tue Jun 16, 2009 11:03 am

sheila&dwayne wrote:We also lost some nesting TRES a few years ago....HOSP killed the TRES on the nest. I did notice that they mentioned to increase the hole size for TRES to 15/16 of an inch from 7/8. Good luck...be patient when you change it, they will get in.

Ok, now I'm confused - Bernie points out that it should be 7/8 and this video says it should be 15/16 for Tree swallows.

Bernie, I take it you are using 7/8 so obviously that size works.
Maybe I should start with the 7/8 and see if they can get in?