European Starlings and House Sparrows

Well, I have not made it back to this forum in over a week. It looks like this subject has been a popular one. I now officially have joined the trappers....

On the 27th, I bit the bullet and I ordered a repeating Sparrow trap. It arrived on Friday! I had the perfect place for it.. I have an section in my lawn, about 3 feet wide with some left over kids play sand on the ground. The sparrows love to "bathe" in the sand, so I put the trap there on Saturday morning, scattered food around it and baited it. I had as many as 8 HOSP there around it eating that morning, but none on the cage. Sunday, I only put seed on top of and on the trays of the trap and they were eating off of the top area. Yesterday, I put most of the seed in the inner trap platform.

By the afternoon my daughter was calling to let me know that one of the dogs was attacking the cage, because I had a sparrow. She occasionally chases the birds, but most of the time just ignores them, but she could not resist a stuck bird. I had my daughter put the cage on the trampoline, while thinking I had a big crimp in my plan to use the sand. This morning I gave the bird more water and baited the cage. I thought maybe the sparrows would be drawn by the other sparrow, even if the cage was in a new place (the trampoline). Well, I was right.. she just called to tell me that there are two more sparrows in the cage.

Now I have to decide how I am going to dispose of them! I have a decision to make this evening. :-(

I just skimmed this thread and I guess I omitted the how to section on “disposal”. There are several accepted methods that seem to change every year or two. Drowning is by far the easiest and most comfortable way for most people to do in S&S. Some folks consider this method inhumane so it is rarely recommended on any major birding Websites. Ironically, chest compression is recommended. This method accomplishes the same result. The bird is deprived of oxygen and passes quickly. I use this method, but it is not for everyone. I don’t like it, but it is quick and easy for me. The back of the bird is supported by your fingers and your thumb compresses the lungs. Less than 30 seconds passes before the HOSP passes. Severing the spinal column at the neck is quicker, but it takes practice to do properly. Perhaps the most common practice is to use ether. Ether puts the bird to sleep, just as it did when it was commonly used as anesthesia for people. If people or birds are exposed to a high concentration of ether for an extended period of time they quickly expire. An entire trap can be placed carefully in a garbage bag, so that the bag is not punctured. Toss in an ether soaked rag and close the bag tightly. Allow at least 15 minutes to pass to make sure that the trapped HOSP are not going to wake up. If you can easily remove individual birds from your trap a large Zip Loc bag works well for this and less ether is required. Where does one get ether? See your local auto parts store. Ask for car starting fluid. The contents should read 100% ether (or close). Needless to say, keep away from sparks and flames.

Whatever you do, DON’T LET A TRAPPED HOSP GET AWAY!!! They learn about traps quickly and you’ll never get a second chance. Take every precaution to make sure that your troubles pay off and you eliminate the birds that are killing our native birds.

Mark

Thanks Mark. I will check with my husband if he has any engine starting fluid laying around. I just truly read the Sialis webpage (not just scanned it). I was thinking about trying the Co2 method, but the ether method might be better. I just want something quick, painless for them and easy for me.

CO2 is another method that I omitted on purpose. It's expensive! If you are still considering it, dry ice is CO2 and if you have an airtight container that works. It still gets you back to drowning/chest compression. It deprives them of oxygen.

The car starting fluid is what many of the women I know are using because it is easier to get but they'd prefer CO2 cartridges. By me they are being shot. I have also heard of people who use the exhaust fumes from their cars. I guess the carbon monoxide puts them to sleep quite quickly. I don't know because we have always shot them. One thing that is very important is to become one with identifying these birds and make darn sure you don't have any species other than HOSPs and EUSTs.

I hate to comment here but are you all just going to throw them out in your garbage once dispatched or did anyone consider contacting a local zoo or a raptor rehab center? If anyone has Turkey Vultures, they will eat them if left out in an area they frequent. Crows will also eat them. Actually, any higher order predator will eat them if you want to just toss them out down the road well out of the path of vehicles and pedestrian traffic. This may not make sense but being able to know that their bodies don't go to waste makes it a little bit easier for me to trap them and allow them to be dispatched. I've heard the practice of donating the dispatched HOSPs as being the equivalent of helping two birds with one stone.

Equil, there are no zoos or raptor rehab centers around here. I could drive for an hour to find one, but that seems too costly for me. I am planning on taking them out to my parents place where they have 16 acres. Certainly something there would like the treat. They have foxes and coyotes. I wouldn't know a turkey vulture if it bit me in the butt.

Terry

Your Mom and Dad's place would be perfect. With 16 acres there, some critter will find them.

Equil, great idea with the raptor rehabbers if they will take them. Mine will not because they are concerned about disease. I too feel better if I know something got to eat them. If not, they fertilize well. ;o)

I've heard of people tilling them into their gardens. I've also heard of Falconers wanting them but I don't know of any Falconers in the area.

eeewwww....on this small a lot, I couldn't imagine the smell that would permeate the air with HOSP rotting away.......

Bury them deeper? I don't know. Maybe you better stick to taking them to your Mom and Dad's house. My vegetable garden was turned into a burn pit a while ago otherwise I'd try it.

Here's another alternative. Meant to be taken with a "grain of salt". :-)

SPARROWS GOOD TO EAT-TASTE LIKE SQUABS
Everything has its uses. Don't be prejudiced; the sparrow has been used as
food for years not only in Europe but in America also. Sparrows on the
table have very, very often been mistaken for squabs.
SPARROW IN CASSEROLE
Take twenty sparrows, brown them nicely in melted butter, and put in
Casserole; then add twelve mushrooms or a cup of canned ones, one cup of
French peas, one pimento chopped fine, one teaspoon minced onion, and one
of minced parsley. Cover all with stock or boiling water. Cook in oven for
one hour. Make gravy from stock in casserole by adding a tablespoon of
flour mixed with water.
ANOTHER WAY IN WHICH TO PREPARE THE SPARROW FOR YOUR TABLE
Take white or sweet potatoes, pare and cut in two parts. Gouge each half
and season bird after cleaning, and insert bird between the halves. Tie
with threads or toothpick and roast in oven, and you will have a choice
morsel fit for the gods.

"I skin my birds, clean and remove head and feet and insert a piece of
butter on the inside. Sometimes I serve them surrounded with sauerkraut, and on the menu you read
'Pigs in Clover.'" Craig R. Arnold, Proprietor, The Mountain Club House, Dahlonega, Ga.

If sparrows are to be broiled, save only the breasts, as this method of
cooking so shrivels and parches the lesser parts as to render them
worthless. In this case tear off a strip of skin from wing to wing across
the back; grasp the wings, in front of the body, in one hand and the neck
in the other, and by a quick pull separate the breast from the ribs; turn
the breast out of the skin that covers it, and sever the wings at the
second joint. The whole operation requires but a fraction of a minute and
it can be done by the fingers alone.
Sparrows may be cooked by any of the methods employed for reedbirds
[bobolinks?] or quail. When boned, broiled, buttered, and served on toast
they are particularly good and compare favorably with the best kinds of
small game. [End of excerpt]

Sorry, couldn't resist!

Mark

Yes, I've heard of recipes using them as the main ingredient before. I never really thought about it because they are so darn small it would seem hardly worth it but I do know they are eaten in other parts of the world.

Here's a question maybe someone can help with. I have a a problem now that squirrels and chipmunks have discovered the trap. They clean it out handily. I feed them on the ground but they still get to the trap and eat the bait.

In my war on rabbits, I purchased deer-off and hot pepper spray. Assumming either of these work, Do you think spraying hot pepper spray on the trap would discourage the rodents without discouraging the birds?

Because of rabbits I have become a hardware cloth queen. I am wondering if I will need to cage the trap somehow to at least keep the squirrels out....?


Thanks,

Maureen

You got me on that one. My squirrels aren't interested in my sparrow trap at all. The chipmunks' energies are very easily re-directed over here because they like sunflower seeds so I just let them gorge on sunflower seeds. You can scatter them over your patio and that will keep chipmunks busy for hours on end ramming them in their cheeks to haul off to parts unknown.

As far as hot pepper spray on the trap, you got me there because I've never tried it. Birds don't smell so it might work to deter the squirrels while not deterring the birds. Why don't you try it and share your experience with it please.

I can't help you in your war on rabbits. None of those products (or any of the other ones I have lining the shelves in my garage) have helped to deter them. If the plant is a juvenile, I tube it until at such time as I believe it is mature enough to withstand rabbits and deer otherwise I plant more of the same plant and cross my fingers and hope for the best with the laws of large numbers. I guess I am an optomist in that I figure they can't get them all. Coyotes in my area have definitely impacted the rabbit, squirrel, and outdoor cat populations which is a big help to me. Occasionally they get a fawn.

For the Squirrel/Chipmunk problem could you sit the trap on small sticks, with the seed below? I'd think that this would discourage everything other than birds. Worth a try, maybe?

I was taught by my father that birds cannot smell. He still gets mad every time I tell him that he's wrong about House Sparrows being Weaver Finches. That common misconception lives almost everywhere in the birding world. Those Turkey Vultures that you feed have a GREAT sense of smell!!! That's part of how they make a living off of the dead. Many other birds are being studied and we are finding out that many are able to smell. It's just that some can smell better than others. Scientists believe that some birds use smell as part of their mating process. I found this:
"If birds don't have a developed sense of smell, why do some Alaskan birds smell like tangerines during mating season?"
For more, see:
http://gorp.away.com/gorp/activity/birding/expert/exp010627.htm

You are correct about the TVs! I went to a seminar on them and they do most assuredly locate food by smell! I totally forgot about them. If there is one out there, there most assuredly are others! Loved your link. This makes sense to me, "It all seems to be another case of evolutionary necessity:"Use it or lose it!" Species that need to locate food or nest sites by smell have retained and developed the ability to do so, while the olfactory sense has diminished or disappeared entirely for species that gain no benefit from a sense of smell."

Oddly enough when we had TVs visiting regularly we could toss out a road kill raccoon or the remnants of our turkey dinner and they would show up almost instantaneously. It was pretty wild to watch them come in for a landing. They had to be somewhere in the area and I didn't see them watching me go out and toss the turkey scraps so I bet they have extremely well developed olfactory senses.

"...chipmunks busy for hours on end ramming them in their cheeks to haul off to parts unknown. "

LOL...That is a fantastic description of what I see everyday, very well said!

I spoke to the person I buy birdseed from and he said the pepper shouldn't deter the birds and pointed out that some suet has hot pepper in it. I will let you know what happens. In the meantime, I just bought a corncob feeder for the squirrels and will put out more seed for the chipmunks.

Also, I hope this isn't too far off topic but since we're discussing HOSPs, I'm sure you all have noticed the wildlife at Lowes & Home Depot. I just got back for Lowes and of course the usual HOSP were hanging out. Has anyone ever spoken to them about their bird policy? Just curious.

I almost said something today because I saw some kind of swallow in the store today obviously being harassed by the HOSPs. I think it was a barn swallow, a really beautiful bird.

Maureen

Does anybody know if HOSPs are this agressive in their native habitat? I assume they are. I just got to wondering if they are considered as big a problem elsewhere as they are in the US.

I just filled some new sunflower seed feeders and mixed in some of the hot pepper suet. It's not supposed to bother the birds and I don't want to attact any unwanted rodents. Nothing against the squirrels and chipmunks, but there are others that are not so cute.

HOSP in Europe are cherished songbirds. They evolved (if you believe in that) with the native birds in Europe, along with EUST, and everyone gets along. There has been a lot of concern about the decline of HOSP in Europe recently. They still don't know the cause. Happily, we are experiencing a small decline in HOSP recently in North America. I'd like to think that part of that is due to all of us who try to reduce their numbers. The main cause seems to be competition with House Finches introduced to New York, from the west coast, years ago. The House Finch has expanded its range and numbers, as most of us well know.

Hey Maureen, I contact them every time I run into feces and get a good case of the heevie jeevies which is about once a year. I send them a very polite and profesional correspondence in which I list out all of the diseases they carry and respectfully request that they do something about what is flying around and defecating all over the store where goods are being offered for sale to the public. I can't stand buying Iams cat food at WalMart that has HOSP poop on it and I can't stand shopping at Home Depot or any of the others when all that bird poop is on their plants and their pots and the candy bar wrappers on the end caps at check out. Some of them get exterminators for them just as they would if they had cockroaches or rats. Some don't. I guess it depends on the area and the store manager. Stores located in poorer communities tend to not have extermination services. I know that many of them are afraid of PETA folk so they do what ever they do hush hush.

I've done a little bit of research on HOSP decline in their native range. I have some thoughts on that. Mark, I will e-mail you privately sometime next weekend and you can tell me how off base or on target you think I am.

Lauren

Thanks for the info. I was way off. I probably need to do some reading. We're in a development that's just a few years old and just getting more birds to move in. There weren't even any trees to save when we built because it was previously farmland. So we pretty much started with a blank slate. But we are making progress and I'm trying to educate myself as I go. thanks again for the help. gram

I live near a lowes and a home depot and both have plenty of hosps and starlings multiplying, home depot's starlings seem worse. It a shame a group like PETA would have influence over anything.

I tried the pepper spray, this one from bonide. It seems to have kept the squirrells at bay, but then it may be the bribe factor, that is, all the stuff I put on the lawn for them to keep them out of my beds. However, the chipmunks were inside the trap again today.

I'm trying the bribery for them too, putting out a great lot of peanuty bird seed away for the trap.

Maureen

I suspect there's no need to worry about the chipmunks. They'll just bail ship through the wire when you begin to approach the trap.

My chipmunks will scurry right over my legs if I'm sitting down on the patio with my legs out in front of me and they want to get to their feeder. I think they view me as a grazer not a hunter.

Lauren, that is funny! The ones here are not that used to me! Or maybe it is just that I am usually on my knees, playing in the dirt! And, I know where they take their cheekfuls of seeds! I find clumps of sunflowers germinating in all my garden beds! Poor things must not realize that planting the seeds, is not saving them for later! They grow! LOL!
Thank you, Mark for the info on the air rifles. My son had one that was pretty good in Nova Scotia, and it was a lever action air pressure model. I found it pretty accurate, but then I was not shooting at a small target. I only carried it when walking my female dog when she was in heat. Worked very well to deter all the males from coming too close! BAM

This has been a really helpful thread. We had a martin colony at our previous home, so we learned first hand what nasty creatures the sparrows are. Before we had to protect our martins, I just thought they were common but harmless little birds. My husband dispatched the sparrows with a BB gun. (Or as I heard someone say once, he "sent them to a higher plain of existence.")

The population in our new yard seems totally out of balance. Our last house was in the country, and we never had this many sparrows. Now we're in a residential neighborhood with houses all around us, and it's pitiful. They swarm over our water dishes and feeders like a pack of vermin. All I can think of is that the sparrows do better in areas where there are lots of bird feeders in proximity to each other, like in a dense neighborhood.

We had been talking about taking down our feeders, but I think a better solution is to face up to the problem and get a trap. I"ll just keep re-reading this thread to work up my courage (the big mental hurdle for me is dealing with them after trapping them.) Anyway, thank you for the thread!

oldmud, I too live in town. I don't feed because of all the sparrows. But I have looked, watched and spoken with the neighbors. I have 1 neighbor that occasionally puts out food. That's it. I think it's just the town as a whole being out of balance. Hopefully, by trapping, I can get my little part of town back in balance.

HOSP thrive in urban settings. The best that we can do is to manage micro-ecosystems. This is a never ending task. I have Bluebirds, Tree Swallows and Purple Martins living and nesting within a HOSP stronghold. I removed two female HOSP today from this location. That makes 9 females and two males for the spring, from this site. I believe that I have lost one Bluebird clutch and four Tree Swallow clutches to HOSP at this site this spring.

Mark

I agree with Stelco. They do thrive in urban settings because they are pretty adaptive to any kind of food. They present us with clear evidence of what happens when an alien invasive species is introduced to a new ecosystem. They will eventually outcompete all the natives. So, the ecosystem goes out of balance and there are less variety of jobs being done hence, a less healthy system. I think that a trap is a great way to manage the microsystem. I think it is tough in a suburban or urban setting as somehow people just don't understand why it is necessary to take birds out. I hope that by posting threads like this we educate people who might be reading and not posting. That and managing our own micro-ecosystem is the best hope.

Equlibrium,

That is funny about your chipmunks. I usually don't sit all the way down because I don't want to give my neighbors a free comedy act as I try to stand up ;)

But one did get trapped in the trap yesterday. I opened the door to let him out and he just sort of walked
over my hand. He was a very polite critter!

oldmudhouse, they are a pack of vermin, IMHO. I got to observe them very closely when my mother was in a nursing
home that had a bit of woods around it. There seemed to be hundreds of them. I would put seed on the windowsill and we saw a lot of birds up close. HOSPs are so aggressive. Only woodpeckers and cardinals would fight back. A robin nested about 15 feet from the room window. I watched as 3 HOSPs almost daily flew up to the nest and did "something" to it until the robin chased them off.

This brings up another question--I have seen 2 or more females with a male often and the gang that attacked the robins were 2 girls and a boy. does anyone know if HOSPs are polygamous?

Yet another question--I am suddenly having a bunch more HOSPs trying to dominate the yard. I have not caught one, even though they are all around the trap. Could they have caught on? If so, what's the solution? (do these questions need another thread?)

thanks,

Maureen

BTW, I am baiting the trap with white bread today.

D-Mail a link to this thread to Stelco and see what he thinks. Try french fries and white feathers and stop filling your birdfeeder.

HOSP get trap shy quickly! They are too darn smart. A variety of traps is sometimes the answer. They are more curious than they are smart. We have to use this to our advantage.

Mark

That's what I was afraid of. I think I'll bring the feeders in today, since the hosps are most of the takers. I will try the fries and feathers.

I hate to take the finch feeders, but the hosps sit on them and eat the niger.

thanks again,

Maureen

This is an old thread I happened upon in an online search. I hope it's ok to make it active again.

I never thought I'd be over "here". It has taken me some time to get to this point. We have House Sparrows and Starlings, so I never wanted to deal with nest boxes. Children built nesting boxes, really wanting them to be used.

We live out in the country. We are surrounded by crop land. We see two other homesteads from our place and there is a creek lined with trees about a half mile from here. We do not have dense tree cover, so we do not see Bluebirds, Chickadees, etc. But we do get HOSP! We have other birds as well. We are a birding family, so are able to easily ID HOSP and Starlings from other birds that come to our place. The two nesting boxes are up. One is for Kestrels, and placed out away from the house and trees, but close enough we can see it with binoculars. The other box is a Flicker, which is closer to the house and attached to a tree. But we will be happy to have any of the native birds nest in either box.

So... Here I am. I just learned about ether, so I think I can do this. None of the other methods settled well with me. But will ether harm any animal or bird that may consume the HOSPs? It was realizing that we could either take them to the raptor rehab place or even throw out into our pasture to feed whatever carrion eaters that helped me think this is OK. It would be feeding other animals rather than being a waste.

We need to think about traps now. We get plenty of HOSP at the feeders yet, but the Starlings rarely come to the feeders, but they sure do like going after the Flicker box. We've plugged that up for the time being. Now we have a male and female Flicker coming off and on. :( The HOSP have gotten a little more aggressive at the feeders. In the cold months, they just eat alongside the other birds, but now they seem to be chasing others away, especially from the platform feeder.

With the trap sold at http://www.sparrowtraps.net/ has anyone had success in trapping Starlings along with the HOSP? Or should we try figuring out a box trap for them?

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm rambling, but I've learned a lot about this in the last couple days and am trying to figure everything out.