Starling and sparrow free : )

[M.Stephens]

My site is starling and sparrow free at the moment. It's been this way for over a week now. Trapping and shooting has gotten me to this point. Though any could show up at any time I have an arsenal of weapons to defend....S&S controller, a new pellet gun, a new .22 rifle, a horizontal gourd with insert trap, 7 Spar-o-doors for trios. The one I mostly use is my 12 guage shotgun, it takes care of most of them. : )

[Taxlave]

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 they'd just take them down and be done with it. Just when I think I've finally gotten them all, here comes the next wave. Their incessant chirping drives me nuts.

[M.Stephens]

Taxlave I have been sparrow free for over a month its the starlings that were giving me fits.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Malcolm, the Spar-o-doors will definitely help you a lot. The SREH will help a lot, round hole traps work good, and I am happy for you

I can say about the same thing, but I did catch a starling about 3 days ago, but have not seen any sparrows in about 2 weeks.

I still think the best ways to make an SREH work is to have a few traps on the perimeter of your housing. Trap them before they go to my gourds, thats the main idea.

[Taxlave]

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 relentless. I have one male that won't enter the spar-o-door or go anywhere near my repeating trap. I think he may have escaped from one or the other. I'm about ready to go after that one with C4 and a bazooka!

[Peggy Riley]

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!

[Taxlave]

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 managed to catch only a couple of juvenile starlings in the repeating trap, but never an adult.

[Peggy Riley]

Taxlave do you have a trap for your house or gourds? If so, I'd use those and then you don't need to worry about the ground feeders.

I use a very cheap old metal house and put sparrow doors in it. I get 95% of my sparrows that way. Over the years I have cleared out most of them. So much so I rarely even see one at the feeders.

Peggy

[Taxlave]

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 the repeating trap. Sometimes the spar-o-door stays open for days.

I think my biggest problem is that my bb gun broke last year and I can't hit squat with the new one. I used to be able to sit at my desk and shoot the sparrows off the houses without even getting up from my desk. Can't do that now :( Even when I have a shot, I rarely make it.

[M.Stephens]

Taxlave , sounds like you need to invest in a good pellet rifle. Most bb guns aren't very accurate. When I was a kid that's all we did was shoot bb and pellet guns. I used to sit on a bucket and plink starlings off of a hi- line and they would fall in a neighbors back yard. I'm sure they wondered how all those birds would pile up in their yard. We found things to do outdoors and weren't like allot of these kids nowadays who stay on cell phones and computers indoors. How times change.

EDIT:That sounds about like all of us now!!'LOL!!!

[Taxlave]

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