Purple Martins - Getting Rid of House Sparrows [Archive]

betsy

03-24-2007, 01:50 AM

Not from personal experience, Perry. Upon googling the subject (search parameters: house sparrows & purple martin houses), the consensus seems to be that not only weekly removal of HOSP & starling nests, but trapping and killing of male HOSPs is essential. Swinging gourd houses are reputedly unappealing to HOSPs and starlings. Crescent-shaped starling-proof entrances are recommended. Sources & more info below (see last link for great resource on HOSP control.)

"House sparrows and starlings will compete aggressively for nesting sites. Repeated nest removal or trapping of house sparrows and starlings may be necessary to make the houses available to
martins." (From http://www.wisconsinpublicservice.com/news/purplemartin.pdf )

Info on a couple of types of HOSP traps:
http://www.wtc.ab.ca/northernskys/sparrow.htm

Starling-resistant Entrance Hole:
http://www.wtc.ab.ca/northernskys/starling.htm

"An effective way to deter House Sparrows at an active Purple Martin colony is to place gourds out as a nest cavity. Sparrows don't like the swinging of the gourds, but martins love them. " (From: http://www.michiganaudubon.org/martins/martins.html ) (That explains why David Hurt put up gourd houses at his WBU store.)

"Housing should come with door plugs to close compartment holes during the off season, and in early spring. This is essential for keeping house sparrows and starlings from taking over martin housing. ... Any house or gourd system should lower and raise vertically. This is necessary for two reasons: to allow for regular, sometimes daily, removal of house sparrow and European starling nests... Perches at each entrance hole are not desirable, and will only encourage house sparrows and starlings " (From: http://www.wbu.com/edu/martins.htm )

"Open housing at the right time, and don’t close it too soon. Adult martins are rarely attracted to new breeding sites - they return to the sites where they bred previously. Typically, it is subadult martins (last year’s young) that colonize new sites, and they begin arriving about 4 weeks after the first adults. At new sites, opening housing when the "scouts" are due decreases chances of attracting martins by giving House Sparrows and starlings 4 weeks to claim the site before the subadult martins arrive. To improve your chances, keep housing closed until it’s time for subadults to arrive (see migration-timing map). At active sites, the first martins usually show up within a week or two of previous years’ arrival dates. Have your housing ready, but keep it closed until some martins return. Migration is a drawn-out affair, with martins arriving for 8-12 weeks in the north, 16-20 weeks in the south. Martins can arrive and begin nesting up through the end of June, so keep your housing ready; don’t close it up, or let other birds use it. [By now they're here, but that advice may be useful for next year.]

Practice active management by controlling House Sparrows and European Starlings. Starlings and House Sparrows will take over compartments, destroy eggs, kill nestlings, and prevent martins from nesting at unestablished sites. Adult martins are often injured or killed by starlings. Successful martin landlords do not tolerate these nonnative nest-site competitors. Starlings and House Sparrows are not protected (since they are not native birds) and may be controlled by trapping, shooting, and nest tear-outs. You can also use starling-resistant entrances (cut crescent entrances 1&3/16 high by 2&3/4 wide, and place no higher than 1/2 inch above the porch floor)." (From: http://www.fws.gov/northeast/njfieldoffice/purplemartin/Purple%20Martin%20Facts%20HiRes%20.pdf (http://www.fws.gov/northeast/njfieldoffice/purplemartin/Purple%20Martin%20Facts%20HiRes%20.pdf)

Purple Martin Conservation Association
http://purplemartin.org/main/housestandard.html

See under "Competition"
http://purplemartin.org/main/mgt.html

Starling-resistant Entrances (products):
http://purplemartin.org/shop/index.php?cPath=34&osCsid=b1a880bbd032b96b75c114c47e1e1664

Some good advice in here:
http://www.purplemartin.net/

This page offers a booklet on how to control House Sparrows:
http://www.purplemartins.com/sales/books/control-sparrows.htm

See links at bottom of page:
http://www.americanartifacts.com/smma/per/spar1.htm

See Aggressive Control section:
http://audubon-omaha.org/bbbox/ban/hsbyse.htm

Keeping Sparrows Out of Purple Martin Houses:
http://www.backyardbird.com/kespoutofpum.html

Really detailed resource on both passive and active HOSP control!
http://www.sialis.org/hosp.htm

Doubtless more info could be found by googling
starlings & purple martin houses (actually, this one would probably pull up a lot of duplicate info as well)
house sparrow control and
starling control.