Purple Martin Forum

I work from home and am looking out my window at my three martin houses all day, most days. In over 10 years, I have never allowed a single sparrow egg to hatch in any of my houses. I've consistently trapped, shot, and otherwise dispatched as many of the mongrels as I could. At this minute, I count ...

My husband watches golf and there is never a time that I don't hear some sparrow in the background. Every place I go I hear that grating cheep of the male "come hither, darlin'". I swear, I hear it in my dreams sometimes. In the morning the first sounds are the mockingbirds, then the white...

Finally, after days and days of watching and listening to that insufferable HOSP, he postured on top of the house for just a second too long :twisted: To complete the process, two martins jumped on him on the ground and proceeded to attempt to grind him into molecular bits. I'm sure more will come t...

I have a pellet gun, but if I accidentally hit one of the houses, I'm afraid the pellet would go right through. I do use it on starlings in the winter

I do have a spar-o-door that I catch a few in. On that house, I only have the holes open that I can see and the spar-o-door is the only open hole on the backside of the house. I put the ones I catch in the spar-o-door in the repeating trap for bait. I've caught probably about 40 to 50 this year in t...

Year round trapping really helps too. Keep your traps working even after the martins are gone. You can get a lot of the young sparrow fledglings out of the way! I trap some in the fall, but it seems like I catch more cardinals than anything else and those little boogers can really bite hard! I've m...

Taxlave I have been sparrow free for over a month its the starlings that were giving me fits. The crescent entrances solved most of my starling problems. Usually, if I shoot one at the beginning of the season I won't see any more until after the martins have left. Sparrows on the other hand are rel...

What I wouldn't give to be able to say that!! I don't have trouble with starlings, but the sparrows are making me crazy. I gave up counting how many I've trapped this year. The problem is that all the residents in the subdivision have allowed the sparrows to take over all their martin houses. I wish...

I've seen squirrels grab freshly-killed sparrows frequently. I think they like a little protein in the spring The funny thing is that nothing eats starlings. Those things can lay around the yard for at least a week until my husband mows them

I hear ya! I think I've "dispatched" around 45 or so this year (big thank you to Blaine and his most excellent trap) and they just keep coming.

Both of my houses are right outside my bedroom. Don't need an alarm clock as the martins "go off" at about 6:30 every morning

I've had really exceptional luck this year by using the sparrows captured with the Spar-O-Door and then putting them in my Blaine's repeating trap. Once you have a bird in the trap, it seems easy to catch more. I've actually had better results with males in the trap than females (maybe I just have u...

If it looks like it's wearing a white striped bicycle helmet, it's a white crowned sparrow.

I'm a huge fan of Blaine's trap! I've dispatched at least 15 sparrows and one starling this season. One sparrow escaped :( I still have one female and male in the trap, so I hope to catch a few more

The day will come will I no longer will hear a single sparrow screeching...

DakotaLady, I love my cardinals, but those little buggers bite like a hookbill. I only made that mistake once, but I paid for it-pulled back a bloody stump, almost :) I haven't had to handle a live adult starling and was a tad concerned about losing another limb ;) I hate it when my cardinals get in...

Chris, that is the greatest PS I've seen! Now, I'm LMAO!! I think I'll use that for my Facebook profile :) Just to update, I removed a male cardinal from the trap that drew blood-yes, I was stupid to just grab him, but I'd been grabbing sparrows from the Spar-O-Door without much pain or problems. I ...

I know this is probably a stupid question, but I have an adult starling in my Blaine's trap and before I make the mistake I did with a cardinal, I was wondering if starlings bite hard? I can tell you from personal experience that cardinals bite REALLY hard.

That is an outstanding, awesome picture of a rainbow!! We haven't had rain in so long, I'm not sure I'd recognize a rainbow if it dropped a pot gold in my yard

We had one last year that mimicked a red tail hawk. I think he got a big kick of freaking everyone out, me included. I'd stroll around the whole yard looking for that hawk. I finally saw the mockingbird making that call. The mockingbirds are way too fond of my ripe tomatoes :) A couple of years ago,...

I love it when the Martins start carrying in these giant sticks and things for their nests. Inevitably, they are unable to manuever most of the sticks through the crescents and they fall to the ground. The mockingbirds retrieve the sticks and use them to construct their nests. My husband loves that;...