Roseunhip - down here in the US, HOSPs (house sparrows) are not protected and you may take lethal measures against them. IThere are a large number of traps specifically for this purpose. I doubt that they are protected in Canada, either, but check with your local Fish and Wildlife equivalent.

Post your concerns on the bluebird forum, as tree swallows use the same kind of boxes as bluebirds and face the same problems from HOSPs. Good luck.

Thanks for the tip and advice. I will go there.

Even if I could and had the heart to take those lethal measures, the problem here looks so bad that I fear I would spend way too much energy that way (= like trying to destroy an ant colony by killing ants one by one!).

"Environmental people" and columnists here watch the introduced HOSP population decline in the cities and claim the SPECIES is in decline. I say to them just come and have a look in the suburbs now enhabited with lazy, over-credited, unaware suburbanites: HOSPs have simply moved here along with them!
They never reply...

Just a little encouragement . . .

2.5 years ago we moved into our house & all we ever saw where house sparrows. Even when we added our pond it was just house sparrows & more house sparrows. We have culling the herd since we got here with traps (euthanasia after trapping). At first it seemed like nothing was happening but this year I have my first native chipping sparrows, & white crowns. I also saw a blue grossbeak yesterday.

Anyway we have really seen a decrease in the sheer number of sparrows on the property (just a double lot in the city). The key is to get the adult males which are the territory owners. Another form of control which I am planning to do next year is put up a bank of houses like for purple martins with the trap doors that close on sparrows when they enter (I read about this in a landscaping for wildlife book I have). The name of the trap is the "Joe Huber Trap-in-the-box". It is a really simple mechanism & can be easily disabled if you get real birds nesting in the house. This should really increase the rate of catch for the adult males.

Don't despair it is possible to have an impact. I think the changes I have made to the habitat have also helped.

P.S. I bet you have already done this but another thing that helped us was to make sure that attic cavity nesting sites where well blocked off with wire screen.

Good luck

Twelve years ago, when I bought this house, I had lots of house sparrows. I actually welcomed them because I watched them eat aphids and other garden pests. As the trees, shrubs, and perennials grew up (with which I filled the formerly empty garden space), I noticed a steep decline in the number of house sparrows. I have mostly native sparrows and finches in my garden now, as well as jays and robins. The few house sparrows still visiting are quickly picked off by the sharp-shinned hawk (the Cooper's hawk goes for the feral pigeons).

I build these and tree swallows go in, amongst other birds.

Konrad

Thanks Konrad! But do you have house sparrows too?
I'd bet not since your lot seems to be of the rather woody kind... plus up North?

If you do the math on the ability of this species to reproduce (2-3 nestings with 4-7 chicks per nesting) and the average life span (roughly 12 years), you realize how eliminating one breeding pair has the potential to have a tremendous benefit on species diversity, even within a small area.

Kate: Sounds like you have had a lot of success. The Huber trap is a great idea. There are also others that are nice. Here is the web site for one: http://www.vanerttraps.com/universal.htm You may be aware of this, but I just think this caution bears saying for those who are reading: The one problem with putting in-box traps in a bank of martin houses is that you are likely to trap native birds as well. You have to monitor these kinds of traps hourly (which might be hard given the height of them) to make sure that the trapped bird is the intended target species. If it is not, you actually risk the life of the native bird(s), which, of course, is illegal as well as inhumane. So monitoring is absolutely essential. I would agree with everything else that you have mentioned. Certainly the males are the ones that control the area and have the most potential to harm native birds through passive and active competition. Most people who do this would agree that one of the best ways to catch them is with in-box traps during the heat of the nesting season. They are very saavy about ground traps. You can sometimes bait the ground traps with nesting materials that are glued to a heavy piece of wood (ripped plastic tarp material, trash, tissues, yarn, etc.). The best season to catch the adult males (and females) is the early spring. During the summer, it is best to use a ground trap baited with white bread. You can catch young birds and females by the dozen this way.

I have included a link for a very good repeating ground trap.

Good luck to you Rose. I think that everything here is really true and if more people would consider doing a small piece of this big problem species diversity could be noticably improved. Of course, this is all contingent on the laws in Canada.

Here is a link that might be useful: Repeating Ground Trap

You're right Rose, sparrows I see ones in a while, but they don't stick around for long,...it's a good thing, but where I live in town it's a different story, lots of sparrows [my neighbor feeds them], I still manage to have chickadee, woodpecker and wrens nested in the one box I have.
As soon a sparrow get in, I throw them out, not getting them a chance to nest.

Something I don't understand, why would anyone encourage to help sparrows, when they are doing just fine on there own.[Especially in the UK & Scotland]

Konrad