CLOSED: Sparrow

This guy is building a nest in one of my nest boxes...thinking it's a guy on account of the colouring. He has the cutest little white eyebrows!!

House Sparrow. Yep, a male.

Resin

Thank you!!

Yep, that is a male house sparrow for sure. I don't recommend that you let it breed since there are so danged many of them and as cavuty nesters they are supplanting our own cavity nesters. Think about it, if a native bird constantly loses out in reproductive competition then it will eventually die out. Destroying the eggs of the sparrow is not recommended since it will go lay another clutch either in the same box or it will go off somewhere and do it again. One might say what's the point if there are indeed so many of them? Answer: One can carve out an enclave free of them thus letting some native species breed. Voila! Mission accomplished. The best technique I know is to "addle" the eggs, return them to the nest box and the female will sit on them until Dooms' Day since they won't hatch. How to addle? Two techniques I know of 1) remove ALL the eggs once the hen starts incubating (the eggs will be warm to touch) and since they are very fragile in human hands be careful not to break them. One simply and deftly (very carefully) pokes a hole in the big end of each egg with a very fine sewing needle which will doom the egg's goal of producing a chick. 2) So she does not lose interest, remove the female's eggs one half at a time, put them in a pan of cool water after poking a hole in the big ends, set them on a burner and heat them to almost boiling for 5 minutes. This kills the germ and the hard boiling makes the egg firmer against the roughness of the hen's going in and out of the box over an extended period of time. You might put up another nest box 25 -30 feet away or so to replace the one you have essentially put out of commission. If all the serious conservationists of native species would adopt this routine many of our dwindling native species would be afforded a comeback!

If you want to prevent house sparrows from using your nest boxes in the future, you can do it by taking a piece of plywood (or other thin wood or other weather-resistant material) slightly larger than the existing hole, cutting a hole in it that is 1 1/8" in diameter (no larger), and then affixing it overtop the existing hole. Don't worry... the house sparrows will probably find somewhere else to nest, in all likelihood, but you will have a greater chance of attracting native species to your nest box, e.g. black-capped (and perhaps boreal, depending where you live) chickadees.

I found him dead under the bird house a few days later. Blasted Starlings had taken it over. Took the house down.

Would the Starlings have killed him?

I could be wrong but I don't think the starlings killed him. Where I live, we have mostly house sparrows and starlings; and while they may not be best of friends, they seem to coexist just fine.

I think the Starling could of killed it. Last year we had a male sparrow that was half out of the hole and almost his whole head was gone. We believe Starlings were the only ones that could of done that.
Sparrows are back this year in the same house. :)