In My Backyard

Battling House Sparrows

Lately my feeders have been overrun with house sparrows (HOSP). After I fill my feeders, the house sparrows converge upon them and have them cleaned out within a matter of hours. I have a platform feeder that typically holds blackoil sunflower seeds, safflower, and raw peanuts. I also have a tube feeder that holds thistle and a large hopper feeder that I fill with a mixed blend. My large hopper feeder is impossible to keep full. When I took down my hummingbird feeder for the winter, I replaced it with a smaller hopper feeder. I thought it might be nice to have a feeder on my patio, close enough I could watch the birds from inside when the weather gets too cold. I filled that feeder with black oil sunflower seeds and safflower. Within an hour or two of putting out the new feeder, my patio was covered with HOSPs. Although I've never really minded them, I didn't really want that many of them that close to the house. So, I started doing a little research on how to discourage them from visiting my feeders. I was amazed at the wealth of information about HOSPs! I had no idea just how hated they are by backyard bird enthusiasts. House sparrows were introduced to the US in the 1800s. They were originally brought here to help control the insect population, but someone didn't do enough research first. Apparently they primarily eat insects only when they are nesting. Oops. They were extremely successful and have become way too numerous. Now they compete with native birds for nesting spots. They have even been blamed for the decline of purple martins and eastern bluebirds. HOSPs are aggressive and will attack and kill these other birds or destroy their eggs. Vicious! Also, HOSPs prevent a wider variety of birds from visiting your feeders. Gold finches, for example, will avoid a feeder if it's surrounded by house sparrows. Because these birds are so controversial, there was a lot of information on getting rid of them. Some websites even went so far as to suggest trapping them or even euthanizing them. That's a little too hardcore for me. I just want to see less of them. Lots of the information suggested switching to black oil sunflower seeds, thistle, and safflower. Apparently HOSPs don't like these seeds, especially the bitter safflower. (And they love the mixed blends.) So I left the main hopper empty and just left out thistle, black oil sunflower seeds, and safflower. They hungrily ate all of that! I removed the thistle and the sunflower seeds, and they still happily chowed down on the safflower. Since changing my food didn't work, I needed other options. These are other things I tried, based on the information I found. Option 1 I cut the posts on my tube feeder to 5/8". Apparently this is too short a perch for the sparrows but still long enough for the gold finches. I was a little nervous, but within a few hours, I had a gold finch happily eating away. The next day, I had 3 on my feeder at once. Before cutting the posts, it had been quite awhile since I had seen more than 1 gold finch at a time. As you can see, the HOSP just can't fit both feet on the perch, but the finch doesn't have a problem. Option 2 I added a piece of plastic canvas to the bottom of my large hopper feeder. The plastic mesh prevents them from foraging on the bottom of the feeder for seed, which is their normal instinct. I'm not sure if this option has actually made a difference, though, because Option 3 seems to be so successful. Option 3 (I am amazed that this option works.) I made my own "magic halo". It's a wire frame that attaches to the roof of a feeder and juts out past the feeder. On the parts that jut out from the feeder, you attach monofilament line or thin wire to hang straight down. Apparently HOSPs won't fly underneath the line, although it doesn't bother native sparrows or other small birds. (Grackles, crows, blue jays, etc don't like it either.) There were mixed reviews on the Magic Halo, and it costs $15-$25, so I tried my own version. Using tape, I just attached very thin floral type wire to the roof of the hopper and extended it out about 10". (I figured I'd use something more permanent than tape if it worked.) After I added the wire to the big feeder, I sat outside to observe the birds and IT REALLY WORKED! The birds sat on the limb next to the feeder and moved their heads all around to check it out. Then they tried flying to the feeder but couldn't land on it, as you can see in the picture I took the following day. It was rather amazing. And, as you can see, it doesn't seem to bother the smaller birds. The next day, I had 4 chickadees visit at once! I've never had that many at a time. I've had 6 house finches visit, and yesterday I had my first dark eyed junco of the season. I filled my feeder on Sunday, and it still has plenty of food in it. Since the house sparrows aren't eating all the food or hogging the feeders, other birds are starting to show up. Hooray! I realize you can see the wire quite well in the close up pictures of the small feeder, but the wire is so thin, that you don't notice it unless you're really looking for it. It really isn't obvious. (All of these pictures were taken through a window.) Option 4 I switched to striped sunflower seeds in my platform feeder for the cardinals and bluejays. (I also kept the raw peanuts.) Striped sunflower seed shells are supposedly too hard for the HOSPs to open. Apparently they are not too hard for my HOSPs, as you can see from the picture! The bluejays don't seem to like sharing a feeder with them, and bluejays yell a lot, so that helps a little. Hopefully I can figure out something for my cardinals and jays, but the other steps I've taken have greatly reduced the amount of HOSPs I'm seeing in my yard already!