I live out in the country, so I have had my full share of sparrows and their obnoxiousness. My brother and I used to hunt them with BB guns when we were younger.
The reason they have become such a problem for us is because they would go into our Purple Martin house and take up room for their own nests. Plus, sparrows are awful because they will literally peck the heads of other birds' offspring until they die. We don't like them because they're not as useful as other birds, like Mockingbirds, who eat plenty of bugs and attack snakes. Plus, anytime they make other nests around the house or in our open garage, it's a huge mess. They're just an all around nuisance.
We have tried shooting them, and trapping them worked pretty well for a while. Catching and releasing never works because they simply fly right back.
Have any of you had problems with bothersome sparrows? How did you get rid of them?
05-17-2014, 10:18 AM, (This post was last modified: 05-17-2014, 10:20 AM by Happyflowerlady.)
We have a lot of birds that come around here, and I am not sure if some of them are sparrows or not. I know that we have Cardinals, and some little Carolina Wrens; and I really enjoy both of those.
We have two bird feeders and all the birds in the area come and find food here. I also put out food like bread scraps, and rice. Last night, we had brown rice for dinner, and so this morning, i put out some leftover rice for the birds to eat. The next time I looked outside of the back door, there were two beautiful Mourning Doves right off the back steps, happily eating the rice for their breakfast.
As for getting rid of sparrows; I have no idea what might work for you, and if you live in the country, then there are probably a lot more that will show up, even if you get rid of the ones you have now.
Oh my, I have never encountered such a problem. We used to have some sparrows where my parents live, I'm sure they still have them, but we don't seem to have any where I live. When I lived with my parents sparrows were not a problem, they were just one of the birds that came around. They weren't very smart though. There was always one that wanted to eat the crumbs from the cat food, but would be oblivious to the cat watching silently in her box a few feet above. She would watch the sparrow for a while, like days or even weeks and let it fatten up, then one day she would drop on it and we'd find a pile of feathers.
I don't really know what you could to other than what you are doing to get rid of them, maybe get a couple of cats? That might scare them off if the cats are really into hunting anything small that moves.
I think that when you have bird feeders put out that you are apt to get a mix of hatever kinds of birds that live in that area. If you are putting out food for the purple martins, and the other birds; then the sparrows and any other birds are also going to come and eat the birdseed.
It is a shame that you have to kill the sparrows; but if they are killing the other birds, then you have to do something about them.
Sparrows are pretty common birds, and I think we have some that come into our yard, too; but we have not had any problems with them, and just enjoy all of the birds when they come looking for food and water.
