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I sent her an email with those photos. Where did you get that idea? Was it on The DRST website? I’ve never seen it. Can I use your photos if needed on a Purple Martin FB group? And it’s OK, I’ll make sure I’ll give you credit if you want but will need your last name.
Tammy
Chris, you are from Toledo? Have we talked about this before? That’s where I’m from. I remember there was one person from Toledo, but can’t remember if it was you or someone else. I’m in Monclova now…used to live in Perrysburg.
Tammy
Hi friends, I just purchased a DRST, and I think it’s going to work great. What do you recommend as far as disposing of the sparrows? I’d prefer a method where I don’t need to handle them….
Any ideas are welcome…..many thanks.
I have used the DRST for several years now with great success. Over 200 sparrows have been removed, and the results were immediate. For the first time in several years, the blue-green swallows are able to successfully raise young in our nest boxes.
Every spring, I set up the DRST to capture the active adult sparrows.
Yesterday, for the first time ever, I had a female sparrow get out of the trap!
She was the first sparrow I caught this season, and alone in the trap. She was working hard to raise the wire cover over the entry hole where the sparrows enter the trap from the up/down mechanism. She would grab it with her beak and raise it repeatedly, even as I was right there watching her. I left her alone and came back later to find her gone.
The trap is solid and the back door was secured: there were no other possible ways out. So somehow she got the wire flap lifted up, and got into the area with the up/down mechanism. From there, she must have crawled up and pushed the mechanism down to escape. The maintenance wire flap over the mechanism area was secured with the original wire, so she didn’t get out that way.
I know this must be a rare event, but now I wonder how the trap could be modified so that smart sparrows cannot lift that wire flap over the entry hole?
Hi Jill, my only idea is to contact “Uncle Blaine” at the DRST website. He is the inventor of the trap, and quite knowledgeable, so if anyone were to have a solution, it would certainly be him. Please let us know, if you find out anything!
Thanks, Stebet! I can’t imagine there is an easy fix to prevent escape artists from getting out. I am still amazed that it happened at all. I’ve been watching the trap more closely, and notice that some sparrows spend more time near the entry flap than others. A small spring that helps to hold the flap shut might do the trick, but the spring would have to be flexible enough to allow caught sparrows to enter. Sparrow are so adaptable, and obviously smarter than I thought they were.
Jill, that happens occasionally but not very often. I don’t believe there’s a fix. There’s a new trap out there from a different vendor that fixed that problem. It has a piece of thick plastic? that covers the hole instead. So HOSP can not escape. It also has a shelter box that the HOSP can go into at night and get out of the elements during the day. There are a couple of downsides to the trap but over all I love it. Now because of Covid and the cost of products and shipping issues, it’s way too expensive.
One way you can help with that on your old trap is to clip the wings of your House Sparrows after you catch them. So as a decoy, they have clipped wings. So that if they do escape they most likely will not make it. I’ll show you some photos of this new trap from Troyers if you are interested. (they sell purple martin housing and products)Tammy
Payton, You are talking about a trap you bought from Sparrowtraps.net, right? Are you talking about the flap that is on the access port where you put your hand in to retrieve the birds? It’s black? I went out and looked at mine that I got several years ago and it does have a flap. I’ve had 4. My first couple didn’t have a flap. I would assume that he puts them on now. Let me see I can find a way for you to contact him. There’s an email on his website but sometimes he’s hard to reach. I’ll get back with you or Cher will help you. She’s the boss here. I’m making one on the traps that I don’t have the flap for out of a tire innertube. Hopefully it will work. I’m not very handy so we will see.
Tammy
Hello Payton,
For a while the DRST was made with the flap at the removal door, but the material he was using to create the flaps became unavailable in the configuration he needed, so – in his words – “it was either traps without flaps or no traps”. You’ll notice, the photos on his site show the trap without the flap in place.
Central NY
TMB Studios
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