InHOSPitable

There's a house sparrow couple busily building their nest in the first -- or what was the first, until yesterday's move of the former wren box -- bluebird nesting box in my bluebird trail. The male and female are taking turns flying in with grasses and weeds, weaving them together loosely to create a soft bed in which to lay a clutch.

This really burns me.

The battle of the house sparrows (HOSPs) has turned into a full-fledged war. Yes, they are songbirds. Yes, many casual birders welcome HOSPs to their feeders. But casual birders don't know what bluebirders and purple martin landlords know: that inside these tiny bits of brown, black, and white feathers lurk killers who have to be dealt with.

Ask any bluebird trail monitor what the number-one problem is in maintaining a trail is, and the answer invariably will be house sparrows. These were introduced to the US in the 1800s and have become one major pest of an invasive species. They are smaller than bluebirds, so can easily fit into the nesting boxes. The males are very territorial, bonding with their nesting site rather than with their mate (poor female!). Male HOSPs will literally sit on top of a nesting box they've claimed and chase any other birds away. Worse, if a bluebird is nesting in a box, well, the HOSP could care less. There are plenty of video clips on the Internet of HOSP nesting box invasions, showing the HOSP attacking the nesting bluebird mother, pecking the eggs, and breaking nestling bluebirds' spines with their sharp HOSP beaks. Sialis has an extremely lengthy list of posts from saddened and angered bluebird landlords as well as rather gruesome photos. The ultimate point is that, for bluebirds, purple martins, tree swallows, and other native cavity-dwelling birds to have any chance of success, HOSPs must be dealt with.

Euthanized. Shot. Killed.

It's not enough to trap them, then drive them miles away and release them to become someone else's problem, although N amusingly suggested an address in a nearby town where we should release HOSPs. No, those darned HOSPs would probably beat us back here. HOSPs are not federally protected birds (the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 does not apply to them, to European starlings, rock pigeons, or Canada geese), nor does any state protect them. This means their nests, their eggs, and they can be disposed off.

I tried -- and am still trying -- passive approaches to HOSP management. I monitor the bluebird trail daily, getting rid of any HOSP nesting material. This is easy to recognize: it's a pile of grass, weeds, twigs, and garbage. I've had HOSP nests with cigarette butts, carpet strands, cassette tape, human hair, and other junk. Bluebird nests are loose cups of straw and dried grass, while tree swallows make theirs of soft white feathers and purple martins -- which would not nest in a little box but in a tall colony structure -- nest in a combination of dried grass and green leaves. Daily, I yank out HOSP nesting material from at least one box.

All right, there was a brief respite last week when I had three or so days of HOSP-less monitoring. I credit this to the repeating sparrow trap that J bought for us from Uncle Blaine. Fabulous device. There's a cage with a little elevator. You put seed (or corn -- HOSPs love corn) inside, plus some on the perch, and the sparrows eagerly set foot inside the elevator in their effort to get to the greater pile of seed inside. The elevator drops, offering them only one way out: into the cage. The first week we had the sparrow trap, we caught 16 HOSPs. J dispatched them the way Uncle Blaine suggested, although if you have a raptor recovery center nearby, you should call to see if they'll take your HOSPs to feed injured raptors unable to hunt for themselves. J left the first little HOSP bodies back in the woods, hoping that our raptors -- broad-winged hawks, turkey vultures, and bald eagles -- might snack on them. I stopped checking on those bloated fly-covered bodies five days ago, and J has since buried the others.

But now it seems that the HOSPs are back in full force. I put a Van Ert in-box trap in one box, and sure enough, the male HOSP took one look inside and didn't come back. On finding a HOSP nest repeatedly in the nesting box closest to the playground -- and on viewing the male HOSP and Sean have a major staring contest yesterday -- I decided to move the Van Ert trap to that box.

The HOSP moved to the second box in instead. J counseled me to leave the nesting material inside, and we moved the trap over. When it is sprung, the entrance to the nesting box is sealed and a big orange circle shows up in the entrance, signaling a bird is trapped within. Obviously, this is not something that I can set and leave overnight, or while I'm out running errands. The last thing I want is cooked HOSP or, worse, cooked bluebird or swallow. At about 1 AM last night I reminded J that we needed to open the door to the nesting box with the trap on it, to avoid that very situation.

This morning, I saw that J had indeed left the door open... and I saw that the HOSPs had once again moved to the next box down. Darned obstinate, persistent birds.

After breakfast, I'm going to go out and toss out the birds' morning efforts and leave that box door open, then reset the trap on the second box. With all the nesting box doors open except for that of the wren's and the HOSPs' nest from yesterday, hopefully we'll be able to catch another couple of HOSPs and keep them from hurting our bluebird babies. Just in case, I'm moving the repeating trap to nearby the bluebird trail, and I'm discontinuing the ground feeder once what's in it is done. The blackbirds and grackles and mourning doves at what drops out of the other feeders, so it won't be too much of a shock for them, and it will be back in the winter for the juncos and other winter birds. But right now, we have to catch ourselves some HOSPs.