Build Your Own Sparrow Trap

[Staff]

Build Your Own Sparrow Trap

Sparrow Trap
excerpt from above:

Anybody that begins the quest of starting a Purple Martin colony quickly learns that two major problems almost immediately surface. One is the European Starling. The other is the English House Sparrow.

By now, anybody that has taken the time to educate themselves about purple martins and wants to start a colony knows about the wealthy New Yorker named Eugene Schieffelin, who in the late 1800's, imported and then turned loose all the birds that were in the Shakespearian plays. Well, needless to say, it wasn't the smartest of things to do, but…

Detailed instructions with supporting photos for DIY sparrow trap included.

[recurve]

I'll be starting on one of these this weekend.

[Equilibrium]

You rock recurve!!! How far did you get with your project? I've got a few traps and I use em. I'd like to get a commercial sized repeating trap but.... they're about $500 which is out of my league. Which 1 are you building? How are you gonna kill em after you trap em.... have you thought about that?
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They like that cheap seed sold at WallyWorld and come next spring.... if you're interested in trapping house sparrows too.... you can stick white feathers in the ground then put your trap over the top of the feathers and you'll get a boatload. Those HOSPs can't seem to pass up a white feather. Why... I don't know but the feathers will bring em in by the groves.
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Love your avatar!!! Don't know if you've got a raptor center around you but... if you destroy the starlings properly.... they might be able to use them. I put ours in individual zip lock baggies and toss em in the freezer until I can take a run up. Donating em helps offset their feed costs. I never thought about giving em to folk who owned "pet" snakes or a rehab center for herps but I 'spose they could use your kills too. If you're shooting em, you couldn't use a lead bb though.

[recurve]

Thanks Equilibrium unfortunately I don't rock so much my project didn't get off the ground this weekend sick kids and studying for finals. Thanks for the tips I'm going the be targeting house sparrows (I've got boatloads of them) I'll have to try the white feather trick. The starlings hit my suet feeders hard once the snow starts flying I deal with them in a different manner.

I like the idea about giving them to a rehab center I'll have to check with the local one here and see if they can use them.

I have a funny story about a starling. last winter I walk outside and found a dazed starling in the yard and for some reason I felt bad for it so I picked it up and looked at it didn't seem to be anything wrong so I threw him up in the air to see if he could fly. he started flying but it was kind of a slow labored flight he made it almost to the wood line when my friendly neighborhood coopers hawk snatched him out of the air and went off to have a nice lunch.
P.S. I think your avatar is awesome!

[Equilibrium]

Finals.... a necessary evil.... this too shall pass as they say. Sick kids.... that's the worst... it always tore me up inside when our kids got sick. For what it's worth.... I've got a lot of projects that never got off the ground. There's always tomorrow or.... next month or.... next year. The kids are only young once and some day they'll stop "needing" us. We'll have that day for all our "projects" that never got off the ground.
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If your rehab centers don't take em.... you could always toss em out for opossums or come spring.... vultures. Um um good!!!
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Your hawk must think you're some sort of a raptor god. I wouldn't feel bad about your weak moment.... I have a lot of them... especially with house mice. I've got this problem killing anything even when I know it should be humanely destroyed.
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The avatar isn't mine. Mine's an avatar sage made special for me. The coon's a gift from gremlins. Hang around long enough and you'll get gifted too.

[recurve]

ARGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!! I put out new bluebird houses on Sunday and they already have sparrows in them. Looks like I'm going to have to get on this project. LET THE BATTLE BEGIN!!!!!!!!!

[Birding Bunch]

How have you done so far, recurve?

[recurve]

Originally Posted by Birding Bunch

How have you done so far, recurve?

Like all my projects it's taking longer than I'd like because of school, kids, and now internship so I haven't even started yet but when I do I'll be sure to post pics.

[Damianita]

I put up bluebird houses and got chicadees.

[Birding Bunch]

Originally Posted by Damianita

I put up bluebird houses and got chicadees.

That's interesting you just posted this. An email from our state's bird list mentioned there are chickadee AND bluebird eggs in one box. A total of 9 eggs. The chickadee built the nest, a bluebird came later to build one, but they all somehow laid their eggs in the one cup. I'd like to see how that will turn out.