HELP House Sparrows

[LittLeTS]

Hello everybody,
I am a new member and I need help I have researched all over the internet and I have had some good advice and some bad so I thought I really need to find some folks that have hands on experience not just theories or guessing.
We have a bad house sparrow problem and I have tried everything but it is not going to work and I will explain. So I have decided not to try to start a purple Martin colony and I'm giving up on Blue Birds as well. For their safety. I love them and I don't want anymore of them to be killed in my boxes. Anyway the reason the house sparrow will never leave is that I have a neighborhood full of bird feeders with bad seed which attracts them as well and a lot of people with unmonitored nest boxes which are everywhere. I have tried talking to some but they just don't care and will not listen so not much more I can do there.
So what I'm going to focus on now is my tree swallows which I love but I want to protect them if I can. Can tree swallows fit or use a 1 1/8 round hole? I have read both yes and no. Also I'm currently trying out an oval horizontal hole that measures 7/8 X 2. and it has a lip for a guard can tree swallow fit or use these please? Oh and can house sparrows get in these size holes?
Would greatly appreciate any advice. If you have had experience with this please help me out.
Thanks

[C.C.Martins]

Ill take a stab at it but not sure if Ill be much help....
first, sorry to hear the HOSP are overwhelming you, they victimize all cavity nesters. Ill say in short, that any hole a tree swallow can get into, a HOSP can too. I have read HOSP don't much care for oval entrances, but think if its available they will take it over.
I don't want to dissuade you, just something to be aware of, trust me if there was a entrance that would keep a HOSP out, we'd know it.
Me, id declare war on the HOSP; trap, shoot, and go to war protecting the natives, you can make a difference, slowly but surely your neighbors will see less and less of their seeds eaten.
Just my 2 cents, not much help I know.
Tom

[Bird Brain]

All my neighbors have bird feeders too. I used it to my advantage. I left my martin housing up all year. The bird feeders attracted them, then they saw my irresistible martin gourds and tried to move in. I shot them all with a pellet gun. I wiped out the house sparrow population for probably a half a mile radius of my house. Now there are bluebirds are martins everywhere. The urge to breed is just as strong as the urge to eat. Use the bird feeder advantage to exterminate an even larger radius of HOSP from your martin pole. It'll take a year or two. But you can do it, provided you can shoot a pellet gun without getting caught. Now a kill only 1 or 2 per year, which is maintenance. It's actually kinda fun.

[C.C.Martins]

All my neighbors have bird feeders too. I used it to my advantage. I left my martin housing up all year. The bird feeders attracted them, then they saw my irresistible martin gourds and tried to move in. I shot them all with a pellet gun. I wiped out the house sparrow population for probably a half a mile radius of my house. Now there are bluebirds are martins everywhere. The urge to breed is just as strong as the urge to eat. Use the bird feeder advantage to exterminate an even larger radius of HOSP from your martin pole. It'll take a year or two. But you can do it, provided you can shoot a pellet gun without getting caught. Now a kill only 1 or 2 per year, which is maintenance. It's actually kinda fun.

Your last line had me chuckling! It is fun.

[flyin-lowe]

I know it seems daunting but you can make a difference in the local HOSP population. They have a relatively small home range. My old my property butted up against a cattle farm. Barns, feed, straw, everything a HOSP loves less then 50 yards from my house. The first couple of years I took out hundreds of them. After that, maybe 70, then 50, after about 5 years it got down to where I would maybe on get 15 or 20. It takes a couple years but you can control them. Couple years ago I finally broke down and bought a nice air rifle. I had tried some of the 100.00 break barrels from Wal Mart etc. and they just were accurate. I have one now sighted in at 33 yards, which is the distance from my house to the PM housing. This one can hit targets the size of a dime at that distance. I have since started increasing the number of kills at my current location. I'll start to see the numbers drop here in a year or two.

[Bird Brain]

And that's fun too, right flyin-lowe?

[Bird Brain]

duplicate

[jhcox]

As far as your bluebird boxes, I would use the VanErt traps in them. They work great. They’re easy to set up and you can get a lot of house sparrows with them. The only downside to them is you need to be home to watch them just in case a bluebird or tree swallow gets in you can release them. Usually the brows will keep them run off if once they’ve claimed the bluebird box and you can tell if it’s a house sparrow that’s building the nest cause it’s very trashy nest and they’ll fill the box all the way up. When you put the trap in, there’s an orange dot that will flip up at the entrance of the louver box to let you know the trap has been tripped. I’ve had a lot of luck with them. I have 15 bluebird boxes on my property and I have three or four Of the Van Ert traps. When You catch a house sparrow just dispose of it. Good luck.

[Clebone66]

Last year before the martins arrived. The house sparrows attempt to takeover of the martin houses was relentless. I shot a few with a pellet gun. But, they wised up quickly and knew what was coming when I stepped on the porch with the gun. I removed the winter bird feeders from my yard to lower the temptation of them sticking around. I then put up a few bluebird houses because the bluebirds wanted to move into the martin houses also. I checked and cleared the houses daily of any suspected sparrow nest. The martins showed up mid to late march and I still continued the removal process of the sparrows and their eggs all spring and summer. The end results was amazing as I had 40 to 50 martins fledge and the bluebirds used both nest and both had two broods.
This year I now have 60 martin nest awaiting their arrival and 4 bluebird houses. What I’ve done differently this is closed off 50 of the nest boxes until the martins arrive.
As far as the sparrows this year, the population is a lot less than last year and more manageable.
I guess what I’m trying to say is…. It’s requires 20 to 30 minutes a day to help these birds and the payoff is incredible.