How on God's green earth do you keep these aggressive/invasive sparrows out of a newly put up Purple Martin House? 12' off the ground and in the open, but we looked in it today and out of the 6 sections out of 12 we looked in and cleaned out all 6 were with sparrow nests. Have not seen any Purple martins yet!
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I'm a first year PM landlord. I have a cheap plastic S&K 12 family house but plugged off certain entrances in the house to make the compartments larger so that makes it only a 6 family house. I installed the starling resistant doors and the gourds have porches. The gourds are attached to the pole just below the house. I put some dried pine needles inside all compartments and added 2 PM decoys.
My plan was to put the pole up on Valentine's Day but Snowmageddon put a damper on that. I didn't get it put up until Sun 2/21. I saw my first PM scout on Fri 3/19. I now have a couple of the holes in the house and 2 gourds occupied pretty regularly. I've had zero problems with starlings or sparrows so far.
All I'll say is PMs are some really cool birds and my wife and I are enjoying the activity every morning and evening.
Last edited by RascalArms; 04-06-2021, 06:51 AM.
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Its a constant battle between them and starlings, regardless of all the precautions taken. Like others have said, pellet gun and cleaning out the sparrow nests is a big chore. (Hint: when cleaning out the nests, I burned them. I used to just throw them on the ground but the sparrows were using it to rebuild.)
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Last edited by HUNTERMAGNUM; 04-06-2021, 09:21 AM.
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Love our PM's. We have had tenants for about 10 years now. Have an established colony. (Have 4 houses with a total of 40 nests cavities. Had 30 productive pair last year)
Hate sparrows (use crescent holes to deter starlings)
1) Pellet gun (shoot when not danger of hitting / busting martin house)
2) Pull sparrow nests every couple days (discard nests, they will re-use materials if you just throw on ground)
3) traps, some are more effective than others. I used scratch grains and caught / released too many cardinals. Now trying nesting material, have caught a few. I have just ordred some to go inside the nest cavity so you can target the more stubborn ones)
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Originally posted by Aggiebow88 View PostLove our PM's. We have had tenants for about 10 years now. Have an established colony. (Have 4 houses with a total of 40 nests cavities. Had 30 productive pair last year)
Hate sparrows (use crescent holes to deter starlings)
1) Pellet gun (shoot when not danger of hitting / busting martin house)
2) Pull sparrow nests every couple days (discard nests, they will re-use materials if you just throw on ground)
3) traps, some are more effective than others. I used scratch grains and caught / released too many cardinals. Now trying nesting material, have caught a few. I have just ordred some to go inside the nest cavity so you can target the more stubborn ones)
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You, sir.........are winning!!! [emoji106][emoji106]
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