If You're Serious About Eradicating Sparrows and Starlings:

[BeemanR7]

https://www.cottagecraftworks.com/starling-trap-v-top-plan-book

I built one of these traps 30 years ago and virtually eliminated European Starlings from my neighborhood in a mere 2 months time in the dead of Winter. You can do the same. It works just as well against English House Finches, AKA, English Sparrows. This is a "must have" for people like me who have Purple Martin colonies. This trap can be easily transported to distant problem sites. 

 

[davecole]

Now THAT would re-define “shooting fish in a barrel!!”

 

[Scrufhunter]

man we could use like 1,000 of those traps here...The only birds you see around here are a HUGE number of starlings, a fair amount of pigeons, and more collerd doves than you can shake a stick at....Not to many sparrows I wish there were more Quail, and chuckar.....all these damn stray cats....there must be 5 cats to every 1 person in this "city" got any good cat trap plans?

 

[BeemanR7]

A live trap is the only thing that I could recommend for cats. Catch and release. Feral cats are quite another matter, however. I'll let you figure out what to do with them. But if you are serious about eradicating starlings (and English sparrows), this trap is the real deal. Cheap at twice the price. And if you do your part and follow the recommendations of the inventor, you can eliminate starlings in your area. How do I know? I've done it!!!

 

[Guest]

Beeman, how did you kill them?

 

[markT]

I've been killing sparrows on my dove field / planted sunflowers.. 

Will this trap work with sparrows even if they have a food source like sunflowers close by?

With regards to disposal I would think a tarp over the trap and run a "hose pipe" aka garden hose in with a car exhaust providing carbon monoxide? Not sure. 

 

[Hookster]

Get a daisy red rider and Saprano them at close range. You will probably have some bycatch that you wouldn't want to bulk gas.

 

[BeemanR7]

Boog,

I go in the door of the trap with a Badminton racket and swat them down and put them in garbage bags and put them in the trash. I empty the trap after there gets to be about 30 birds in it. When Starlings are plentiful, I have to empty the trap 3-5 times a day. That's 90-150 birds per day. Obviously you can see that this is no job for an airgun. Just too many birds; and they catch on too quick if you start shooting. Leave the gun in the house until you've reduced the population of Starlings in your neighborhood down to airgun "maintenance levels". Then you can resume shooting to maintain tolerable numbers. 

All of this assumes that people are SERIOUS about reducing Starling populations in their neighborhoods. Shooting is fun and good practice for the shooter. But eliminating Starlings is only effective by this means. Shooting is about as effective as a fart in a skillet.

 

[BeemanR7]

MarkT,

The best time to trap English Sparrows with this cage trap is in the dead of winter when the ground is covered in snow and natural food and water is scarce. Simply throw wild bird seed and cracked corn on the ground inside and outside the cage to attract English Sparrows. Keep a pan of water in there too. When the seed and corn is nearly gone on the outside of the cage, they'll take your bait on the inside of the cage. Before long, the cage will be full of English Sparrows. Repeat this process of baiting and cleaning out the cage until there are no Sparrows left. Clean out the cage whenever you catch about 30 birds. When you clean them out, leave a few live birds in the cage and they'll attract new birds to the cage. Don't forget to leave a few live birds in the cage!!! This greatly speeds up the process. 

Another great time to use this trap is when baby English Sparrows are fledging. You'll catch hundreds. The parent birds will go in the trap too and you can double up the count.

This trap, although always effective, is least effective when food is plentiful. But if you can get even one bird to enter this trap, many will follow and you can literally keep this trap in use year 'round. 

As for gassing them with engine exhaust, I'm sure it would work but it would take too long for my purposes. I want to keep my trap busy. I simply go in the trap with a Badminton racket and swat them down and put them in trash bags and put them in the garbage. It only takes minutes and you don't have to mess with a tarp on windy days. 

 

[BeemanR7]

Hookster,

I do NOT recommend using an airgun in any case to empty this trap. Too dangerous of ricochet. Too time consuming. A waste of precious lead and BBs. Just swat them down with a Badminton racket. Takes only minutes and little effort. 

Occasionally, as with all live traps, a native songbird will find his way into the trap. Simply go into the cage and catch him bare handed and let him loose. It's not as much trouble as one would think. They tire quickly and are easily caught and released without injury to you or the bird. 

Experience has taught me that when the cage is full of either Starlings or Sparrows, native songbirds usually stay away and you rarely have to go in to release them. Native songbirds have a natural aversion to these aggressive and non-native species. 

 

[BeemanR7]

Scrufhunter,

It only took ONE of these traps to catch 700 starlings, and I did it in no more than 2 months, February and March, of it's very first year in operation. My entire neighborhood was left bereft of European Starlings and there was NO Starling competition for my Purple Martins the following spring. One of the great things about this trap is that one man can move it easily and can load it onto a lawnmower trailer and move it to a different neighborhood if desired. I've had mine for over 30 years and the number of Sparrows and Starlings that I've caught with in would boggle the mind if I had kept a running count over the decades. 

 

[Guest]

Beeman, excellent work! Badminton racket sounds like a good idea. I tried gassing some house sparrows I trapped with my car exhaust and it was too slow. 

 

[BeemanR7]

Scrufhunter,

I used only ONE of these traps to trap over 700 Starlings in no more than 2 months (Feb/Mar) of the very first year in operation. And it works equally well against Sparrows. In the Spring of that year, there was NO competition from Sparrows or Starlings for my Purple Martins. What a great year I had!

The great thing about this trap is that it is light enough for one man to move around. It can be loaded onto a lawnmower trailer and moved to different neighborhoods if desired.

I've had this trap for over 30 years and the number of Sparrows and Starlings that I've killed would boggle the mind if I had kept a running count over the decades. This traps is truly amazing. 

However, I've never heard of this trap being used for either pigeons or collared doves. But I suppose it would work if the gap at the bottom of the V were increased in width and an effective bait lure could be found. I have not investigated this.

 

[Brian10956]

I’m a little late to this starling trap post but a clean easy way to kill them in the winter it to spray them with a detergent water mix .the detergent will break down the oils in their feathers and they will freeze to death overnight.