Smashed HS Eggs Left In Compartment Drives Off Sparrows!

[Gary W]

I live in an urban area where I am restricted from using any kind of pellet or BB gun. I have to use other ways to get rid of House Sparrows. Recently, I had a pair of sparrows take up residence in one the compartments of my Coates house. I kept cleaning out the nest daily, but they continued to rebuild it. Finally, the female HS layed 3 eggs. I cleaned out the nest again, but smashed the eggs on a plastic sandwich bag, and left them in the compartment. The birds abandoned that compartment, but a few days later, the same pair of sparrows started building a nest in a Supergourd. I then cleaned out the nest in the Supergourd, and transferred the sandwich bag, with the now dried sparrow eggs on it, to the gourd. When the sparrows saw their smashed eggs again in the Supergourd, they finally left the site.

Gary

[Donnie Hurdt MN]

Glad you shared this info. I have heard other people having good results using this method of sparrow controll too. Thanks.

[Louise Chambers]

Did not work when I tried it, but that's not to say others may not have success with it. Tried this method with both house sparrows and starlings with no success.

[Sam Harris]

I have heard of people shaking the eggs so they wont hatch. The birds will waist time sitting on the bad eggs.

[Gary W]

Hi Louise,

I have heard also, that others have not had success using this method. In my case, I do not have a lot of Houses Sparrows around my site. I have heard in Texas it is an intense struggle to get rid of sparrows, because of a heavy HS population. That may be the reason.

Gary

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

If I cannot trap or shoot the housesparrows, then I try to capture the female when she is on the eggs. I set up my stepladder in a good place, and about 9 at night, I go out and close the hole in the gourd where the Houseparrow has her eggs. That may require me to lower the gourd rack by a few feet, but this does not affect the martins.

Its easy to close the hole, I just shove a stick or board into the hole where the HOSP is in, and wait until morning to remove the gourd and the HOSP., that way I don't disturb the martins.;

[Gary W]

Hi Emil,

That sounds like a good manuever! I may try that too, if need be. I was wondering though, do you catch the male HS along with the female? The males seem to cause the most trouble.

Gary

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Gary, its usually only the female, but the male usually stays away after he comes back to an empty nest the next morning.

[flyin-lowe]

The only thing to watch out for is the reaction of the HOSP. They can go into a rage when their nests are destroyed and wreak havoc on nesting martings. I had one pair I couldn't get shot last year so I waited until they laid eggs and then set a trap. I had the female trapped in a matter of minutes. The male never returned to the nest but I found some eggs that were pecked that next morning when I had the house down to re set the trap. I know you can't let them stay but they were minding their own business until I disrupted their nesting.

[John Miller]

Gary

I thought this tactic worked once for me last year, and at a second location it merely caused the sparrows to sulk for three days before rebuilding.

If you have a site that's heavily populated by martins and you pull sparrow nests several times a week early in the season, martins may be able to claim all the the cavities. But I'd stop when martins have eggs, which might be soon in Florida, because as stated, it does cause more sparrow rage.

We pulled and pulled sparrow nests last year at one site near St. Louis, Cahokia Mounds, and martins finally occupied all gourds on a rack but one, and we did not observe major egg loss to sparrows after we "gave up" nest pulling by about last week in May, when martins start laying here. But at least one nest of sparrows fledged. It's not the best approach I know, but we're not allowed to shoot at this site and trapping isn't really feasible because we're not there to monitor daily. All in all, I thought it worked pretty well. I did "early fledge" some sparrows late in the season after the martins had all fledged.

John

[teridickinson]

I have heard of people shaking the eggs so they wont hatch. The birds will waist time sitting on the bad eggs.

That sort of thing might work OK before the martins have eggs, but once they do, the sparrows will visit the martin nests and peck and/or throw out martin eggs, for no good reason at all.

Trying to peacefully coexist just doesn't seem to work. Letting them sit on a nest though is a good way to get them committed so it's easier to trap them.

[Scully]

2008; we pulled every sparrow nest every week from six neglected housing sites, from early March until mid July. About 240 sparrow nests were pulled over that four month period from the 88 available compartments, more than 200 sparrow eggs were broken and left in the compartments where they were found.

We still had as many sparrow nests/eggs in July as we did in March. So it didn't work for us. Some have reported this method works elsewhere, no harm in trying it once or twice I guess.

Except that the affected sparrows did go on to invade neighboring martin nests, destroying most of the martin eggs and small young ("sparrow rage").

We concluded that around here if a landlord isn't going to trap out the sparrows, it was best to just clean everything out once, early season, and then leave the sparrows alone.

Mike Scully

[e p jones]

Does anyone have any experience in taking out the HOSP nest, then plugging the cavity?

[Scully]

Never tried it, but it sounds like a sure way to get them to invade the next nearest cavities, occupied by martins or not.

Martins often can win possession of a cavity among sparrows, in neglected sites one sees that all the time. The martin's Achilles' heel is their eggs and small young. The parents cannot be there ALL the time. Not much they can do to protect these against aggressive sparrows, how they manage it at all in neglected sites is that not even sparrows will commonly occupy every cavity.

Turn them out of the cavities they were in without trapping them however, and they'll invade the neighboring cavities.

Mike Scully

[zoefluf]

I've tried plugging up the cavity but they just move to another cavity. This year I've been trapping and it really doesn't matter whether I trap the male or the female, whichever one I don't trap always comes back with a new mate. But, they must have a good memory because if I put the trap back right away hoping to catch the mate - they won't come back to the gourd with the trap, but will move on to another gourd. If I wait two days or till I see the sparrow going in and out again and THEN set the trap, they will usually keep using the same gourd and get caught, but by then, unfortunately, they have brought a friend over and the cycle begins again. (big sigh!) Oh well, I am reducing the sparrow population one at a time. I like to keep them coming back to the SAME gourd so I will know that they are not ousting a PM pair and my trap gourd is within view of my house so I can view the sparrow activity.
Jeanne