Subject: Ballard house sparrow plague
Date: May 30 17:53:40 2000
From: Li, Kevin - Kevin.Li at METROKC.GOV


About a week ago I put up a violet -green swallow box, one with a narrow
(7/8"?) slit in the upper corner; almost immediately it caught the attention
of tree swallows, and for a few mornings I saw them hanging on and flying
around the box. But I never saw them actually in the box, and their
attention dwindled after those few days. Fearing that the entrance was too
narrow, I removed the door and used a table saw to enlarge the slit by about
the width of the saw blade.
Upon reinstallation of that and another old martin box with a round 2" hole,
my front porch was immediately plagued by house sparrows. At least three
pairs were vying for the box with the slit, and the one with a 2" hole was
ignored. Now I'll either shim the entrance to make it smaller, or I'll take
them down altogether.
Last year at the North end of Green Lake we (Martin Muller, Ed Newbold, and
others) installed similar boxes for swallows; does anyone know how those
have worked out?

At least I still have a scrub jay in my neighborhood.

Kevin Li
Seattle, WA
e-mail: kevin.li at metrokc.gov