House Sparrows again

[MartiStupka]

I had 20 eggs when we did a check yesterday. I was hopeful that we wouldn't have house sparrows visiting this year, but late yesterday, a male and female appeared. We are planning to put a trap in one of our apartments today. I've spent the last hour or so watching our house, and the Martins chasing off house sparrows. I've never seen this before, but I have 5 ASY males that look like they have posted themselves as guards. They have positioned themselves near the apartments where there are eggs. I've never witnessed such commitment from the Martins in defending their home. This is our 5th year as landlords and we didn't have sparrow problems until last year. At that time we had a Trio mini-castle and used the Spar-O-Door, which was great. We now have a Lonestar Goliad, which the birds seem to like a great deal. It's much better made than the mini-castle, which didn't hold up well after we enlarged the compartments following the instructions on this site. I have a new sparrow trap that I was told in prior postings to the Forum would work with the Lonestar Goliad. Has anyone seen Martins defending their home successfully against house sparrows? I'm still setting up the trap, and will monitor it closely, but hope that the Martins can defend themselves in the mean time. I very much appreciate all of the support that people on the Forum have provided, since I knew nothing about Purple Martins when I got into being a landlord. I love the Martins and look forward to their arrival every year, and will defend them as best I can. I only wish that my aim was better, so that I could more quickly take care of these evil sparrows.

Marti

[stan davison]

This is normal activity at an established colony. However eventually the sparrows with find an empty unit or one that the martins are not defending very well and they will move in. Just keep trapping. You might try the ST1 . Bait it with white bread. Good luck.

[Emil Pampell-Tx]

Marti,
if you still have the Trio, it may be a good idea to put it up somewhere as a trap, and close off all the holes except where the spar-o-door is. The sparrows would probably use it and get trapped.