Just ranting because I have never ssn so many sparrows in all my years of bluebird and swallow caretaking. My trail in the nearby park is overrun. Sparrows even laid eggs on a newly formed swallow nest. No bluebirds at all. And I just don’t have the time to keep after them there. My home boxes are sparrow visited constantly. I have trapped almost 20 of them in less than a month and they just keep coming. Feels pointless and out of control. I need to get spoomers up or something at the park…but time is hard to come by lately. Anyone else seeing an upsurge in sparrows? I am wondering if it is people working from home more and more time to put out sparrow seed. Ugggh. It is exhausting.
I’m glad I am not the only one upset/ranting this year. No, I have never seen so many HOSP around and NO bluebirds. I don’t know exactly how many HOSP (house sparrows) I have disposed of but I have four different boxes and almost always have a trap in one or the other of them. I had seen a pair of bluebirds earlier but they did not try to “stake” out a box and therefore all the HOSP have been using them. Sure a heartbreak after 15 years of having bluebirds/eggs/ babies. We have had very strange weather here in Mid-Missouri – almost no winter weather when supposed to have it, then turned off warm too soon, plus not much rain going on. EKKS . . . . .
This is weird because I haven’t seen any bluebirds here in southern California, either. I had a good batch last year, the first time that I got westerns to move into one of my boxes. This year, zilch. Some flycatchers moved in last week.
We had rain, rain, rain, long past the normal rainy season. There seem to be plenty of bugs.
I should say I did have a bb pair exploring the trail in early April (when it was kinda nice out) but they moved on. I put up a spooker on the former tres box. Maybe that will buy some time while I coonntinue to remove sparrow nests in the other problem boxes.