Eliminating House Sparrows an European Starlings

As requested:

Before anyone begins controlling these two species they should check local and state laws. Shooting and trapping may require a hunting license. In Michigan a special permit is required to trap these non-native, invasive species which kill our native birds. Local laws may not allow shooting an air rifle and some local laws even protect HOSP and EUST! If you find that you live in one of these “sanctuaries” please start going to your town hall meetings or their equivalent. Teach your law makers that non-native, invasive species need to be controlled to protect our native birds.

Before you pull a trigger or dispose of a bird, please be 100% sure that you are about to destroy a non-native House Sparrow or European Starling. If you are not 100% sure just forget about it.

By far, the best way to control S&S in your “micro-environment”, yard, or Bluebird trail is by a combination of shooting and trapping. In many areas shooting is illegal, impractical or undesirable. Some folks just can’t shoot or don’t want to. If you decide to shoot, consider buying a quality gun and scope. Missing half of your shots gets discouraging.

If you are only going to trap you need to be species specific. House Sparrows and European Starling are extremely intelligent. One trap will not get every target bird. Even if you are only trying to trap HOSP you will want several types of traps. These birds learn quickly and avoid known traps. Fortunately, these birds are also extremely curious. That’s why a variety of traps works best.

There is no need to spend a fortune on traps. Some of the best traps can be made at home, if you are handy and have a little spare time. Many folks begin trapping S&S because these are the most numerous birds at the feeders or they plan on putting housing up for other cavity nesting, native birds. If you would like to try to provide housing for native cavity nesting birds like Bluebirds, Tree Swallows, Chickadees, Titmouse . . . and want to eliminate HOSP competition you can get started with your housing and trapping at the same time. Plan your housing properly. Two Bluebird type houses on each pole, mounted back to back, with predator guards on the poles, spaced about 300 feet apart (cheat on the space limits if your space is limited). Bluebird boxes are HOSP magnets! You might trap a few dozen HOSP before you get a native bird. CAUTION! ONLY TRAP WHEN YOU ARE ABLE TO MONITOR YOUR TRAPS!!! Native birds MUST be released ASAP! The Huber trap is a great, cheap, easy way to get started eliminating HOSP and set up your backyard housing or Bluebird trail at the same time. Warning - the following link has some graphic photos of what HOSP can do to our native birds. Just scroll by them quickly, to how to build this simple trap, if you don’t want to witness what HOSP do to our native birds. Link:
http://community-2.webtv.net/hubertrap/HOUSESPARROWCONTROL/

Repeating traps catch numbers of birds, simultaneously. There are a wide variety of these traps. Some are large enough to walk into. These will cost you more than a few bucks, but if you are handy and check out the designs you can make your own much cheaper. Since they all work a little differently and are explained best already, I will just provide links to some repeating traps for S&S. Where S&S are plentiful at least one type of repeating trap should be used, at least occasionally. Bait an area for a few days and set the trap in the baited area. Bait with seed, bread and feathers. Leave the trap until the birds get wise to it and then rely on your other traps for a couple of weeks (lather, rinse, repeat – only funny to those of us old enough to remember old shampoo bottles). Links:
http://www.trap-man.com/live-capture-repeating-sparrow-trap.htm
http://www.sparrowtraps.net/
http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/per/startrap.htm
http://www.entrancesbysandy.com/id188.htm
http://schoolipm.ifas.ufl.edu/birdtrap.htm

Traps from my friends for both Starling and HOSP:
http://shop.purplemartin.org/shopsite/purplem/sparrowtraps.html

A great link for a number of traps:
http://mibluebirdsociety.tripod.com/michiganbluebirdsociety2/id18.html

I know a lady who has hosted at least 46 pair of Purple Martins for the past several years. She uses a single trap (sort of). She has an old Purple Martin house that she converted to a HOSP trap. It stands about 5 feet high and all twelve compartments are equipped with traps. When a bird enters – not a Martin friendly height or place, though close to the Martin housing, the trap shuts and an outside “handle” opens the trap. A cup, with a plastic bag attached, is placed over the opening and the HOSP flies into the bag when the handle opens the compartment with the trapped bird.

Every yard, Purple Martin colony or Bluebird trail will have a unique problem and ways to handle it. When I set up Purple Martin housing and Starling were a problem I set traps in compartments that Starlings entered when I was at home. When I saw a tripped trap I took care of the problem and reset the trap until dark. Remember to close down trapping when not monitoring! My repeating trap got one Tree Swallow and it was released within minutes.

If you decide to set up, or take over, a Bluebird trail you may only be able to tend to it once or twice each week. I was faced with this situation just this spring. House Sparrows were more than a major problem on the Bluebird trail. I have lost one Bluebird nest, six Tree Swallow nests and one Purple Martin nest to House Sparrows. As soon as House Sparrows started to build nests they started laying eggs. This is another advantage for us. Before you do what I did you have to know what every cavity nesting bird nest looks like! You have to know what every cavity nesting bird’s egg looks like! Before I go on I must say that I consider S&S EXACTLY in my bird housing the same way I consider mice and rats in my home. When I POSITIVELY knew that it was a HOSP nest WITH eggs (preferably incubating) I removed the eggs and placed a mouse glue trap right where the eggs were. This needs to be done carefully to avoid detection, but the female HOSP has site fidelity and will almost always be trapped in the glue within a half of an hour, because she HAS to incubate. Native birds will never enter a HOSP nest, so this is the only time to consider this method. Never use a glue trap unless you insert it into a HOSP nest that has/had HOSP eggs!!!!! Check your trap within an hour and dispose of any glue trap if you catch your target or not.

Above all, the more that you learn about birds and their habits, the more you will learn about how to handle “problems”. Hunters learn the habits of the game that they hunt. Birders learn about the ways of the birds that they want to see or photograph. Now you have everything that you need to start helping our native birds, some of which are endangered, threatened, or species of special concern. As someone who cares about native birds you should consider providing housing for native birds and eliminating non-native, invasive species.

Mark

Hey Mark, nice thread.

I am most curious about this- "Two Bluebird type houses on each pole, mounted back to back, with predator guards on the poles". Do you have any photos of one of these set ups?

Well, I'm afraid that I don't always follow the rules. I plan to improve my small trail this fall and will take some photos then. I adopted this trail and decided to devote more time to the Purple Martin housing than the Bluebird housing. With the number of Tree Swallows and Bluebirds at this site I need to do more for them. My main goal will not be following the rules as much as "House Sparrow proofing" the site. From memory, I lost six or seven clutches of Tree Swallows to HOSP and one clutch of Bluebird eggs. Every site is different. I have had Tree Swallows and Bluebirds nest on my land where I only hang out a plastic gourd for the TRES, by the lake. It is occupied every year. With only an acre, I just have a couple of Bluebird boxes up. For those it is first come, first served. This year my single occupied Bluebird box fledged seven out of the eight Black-Capped Chickadees eggs.

I found this photo, which is similar to what I suggested. They are not mounted on the same pole, which costs more, but may increase the chances of getting TRES and EABL to nest in close proximity. They also lack a predator guard. Predator guards can be purchased online or at a birding store. A simple one that seems to work is to buy a plastic bucket at the Dollar Store and cut a hole in the bottom just large enough to fit over the pole that you use. Before you mount the house attach a hose clamp where the bucket should stop, invert the bucket and slide it down to the clamp, which will stop the bucket.

Mark

This is one method that may work for folks who have a lot of House Sparrows. By using regular Bluebird houses to attract (and trap) House Sparrows and mixing these in, you may be able to convince EABL or TRES to nest in one of these. They are easy to make out of four inch PVC (or similar material) and HOSP don't seem to like them. They are not as attractive to EABL or TRES, but I had both nest in this type of "box" this year. The entrance notch should be about 1 1/2" deep and 2" wide. A couple of long nails hold the cup on the wooden roof structure.

I need help. The HOSP are in full force here, and I'm just not sure what to do. Do I just put out a bunch of seed on the ground for them, then put the trap back out after something like 5 days? I've read where bread is good, but my little long-haired chihuahua loves bread and it wouldn't last. She'd eat it all. I believe it's a good idea to keep it away from neighbors, and living on a corner lot means I have only one corner that would be blocked. It that a problem? There are 3-4 lilacs (old lilacs) and a small serviceberry in this area. Plus right now my tree of heaven is there....I know, I know. I need to find a tree service and inquire about the cost of removing it. Anyway, please give me some suggestions.

Finding out about legality was something I just did. I talked to someone with the Iowa DNR. I was just going to trap, but I had that prodding in my head that I'd better check it out. He did have a couple questions, how I was going to trap and extinguish, and how well we recognized the native species. Birding is nearly a passion, so we recognize what is what.


This message was edited Apr 4, 2012 6:04 PM