jimf@ihlpf.ATT.COM (JF) (05/17/88)
In article <246@oravax.UUCP>, john@oravax.UUCP (John Gregoire) writes: > Jim, your problem with house sparrows (HOSP) and starlings (STAR), or as we > prefer (SLZO), is common to boxes that are emplaced too close to human > structures. The box which Had the bluebirds is about 250 - 300 ft from the house and 50 ft from our pond, and about 5 ft off the ground. Its on the fencepost at the corner of our mini orchard. I also have a box which is on the other side of our pond, at least 400 ft from the house and under some large oak trees. The sparrows also go for that one, but I haven't seen any bluebirds around that one. Yesterday a pair of bluebirds were back trying to build in a box that's only 50 ft. from the garage at the other corner of the orchard fence. They have been fighting with sparrows over the box. It seems like no matter where I put them, the sparrows try to use them. I must have ripped out sparrow nests at least 30 times, but they just don't give up. Would putting the boxes lower to the ground scare off the sparrows (3-4ft)?
john@oravax.UUCP (05/19/88)
Jim cited his bluebird box locations and asked if a lower than five foot mounting would deter house sparrows. Bluebirds prefer a box in an as open location as possible. The height of the cavity opening should be around four feet. This tends to deter some other cavity nesting competition. If you're in Black snake country, you should also use a predator guard. I don't think your five foot box height is excessive but would certainly try moving the box a bit lower and discoutage HOSP nesting attempts by cleaning out the box whenever they start building. We had a very successful trail in Maryland (over 400 boxes) and tried all sorts of combinations. Where a HOSP population abounded we had no choice but to discourage their building. Here in New York, I'm running into a more frustrating problem as we have a small bluebird population and large house wren population. To date, two nesting attempts have suffered wren predation ( they enter the box and destroy the eggs). Although we can thwart wren nesting attempts by removing the sticks, I know of no solution to the egg predation as the wren is protected. Sorry we can't solve your problem. Try the lower box and sparrow nest removal. Let me know how you make out. An informative book on blubirds was written by Larry Zeleny a few years ago; believe it's called THE BLUEBIRD.