House sparrow fix

[williamn]

Has anyone had any luck trapping H/S in a bo nine gourd, if so what kind of trap will work ?

[Kyler]

I use this a I have caught a few. I have a completely separate gourd that I installed this on and when I have a pair of sparrows in a gourd I take that nest out or at less some of it and put it it the gourd with the trap then I change out the gourds. Here is the link.

https://www.purplemartin.org/shop/produ ... mate-trap/

[williamn]

Thanks for the information. I have been removing nest material and eggs weekly and they keep rebuilding. I hope this trap will work.

[flyin-lowe]

If you have time to sit and watch very carefully you can use a sticky mouse trap. I only use them as a last resort but every so often I have a sparrow that I cannot get anywhere near to shoot. When that happens I reduce the opening down so a martin cant get in and put the glue trap inside. I sit back out of the way but don't lose sight of the cavity until the sparrow returns. Again you have to be careful with these but they can work when nothing else will.

[Don Troha]

I have one of those S&K ultimate gourd traps and couldn't get a sparrow to spring the trap. Maybe because the loop in the wire is too big and the sparrow goes right through without tripping it. Anyway, just saying you might have to fiddle with it to get it to work.
Also, I changed the entrance on mine to 1 3/8 inch round hole to avoid trapping a Martin by mistake. And I use 1/4 inch plastic screw-in type rivets instead of those permanent push pins so I can easily swap out the trap with the normal porch.

http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o61 ... q4fbh0.jpg

http://i1150.photobucket.com/albums/o61 ... 5xw2ez.jpg

[Kyler]

Don,
A simple way to not allow the sparrow to go though without tripping it. Would be to wrap a rubber band around it so it would hit that and not pop right through. But anyways I like how you did that entrance.

As I said before I have a separate gourd for that but something that would be very easy would to be just hang it up on the rack and allow martins to nest in that gourd. But if you didn't have martins in the gourd and you had sparrows the you could easily set the trap.

I also painted the whole trap white so they wouldn't think something was to much different. I mean the black straight pieces and the plate that falls.

Kyler,

[Don Troha]

Kyler, thanks. Looks like having the trap permanently installed on a gourd is a better option. I just don't have a spare gourd at the moment so I plan to get one. That way I can hang the gourd at various locations around my yard away from the Martin housing to catch snooping sparrows. Then if a sparrow tries to move into a nesting gourd on the Martin housing, I can swap it out with the trap gourd. I also like the idea of painting the whole thing white so the trap blends in with the gourd... dt

[williamn]

Thanks to all for all info and pictures to help remove these pest

[Robbo]

I have that trap but the Sparrows don't set it off ?

[Kyler]

Like I said before I wrapped a rudder band around the hole in the wire. The sparrow will trip it every time. Well they do on mine.

Kyler,

[Robbo]

I am going to try that, but also that pin vibrates foward so there is no way to set it off. I am going try and put a stopper on it somehow.