** Reply to message from Blake Iverson <coopershwk at hotmail.com> on Mon, 17 Jun 2002 16:15:46 -0700


> With the way you describe things my guess is that they weren't barn swallow
> nests but cliff swallows. Cliff swallows suffer greatly from house sparrow
> agression and I would love to take my bb gun and get them, I'm very good at
> shooting at those suckers under certain cercumstances. Anyway, barn swallows
> rarely suffer from HS unless they build there nest far enough down from the
> top of something (like a roof) then the HS can get to them. It's very sad
> but there is only so much we can do in front of public. Unfortunatelly, if
> it's not on private property, I can't go in and start trapping and shooting

Sorry to have to disagree here, Blake. The angriest I have ever seen my mother was the day that she found her beloved Barn Swallows on the ground under the eaves with their eyes pecked out. The lordly cock House Sparrow atop the eave proclaiming victory was enough for her. She ordered us kids to dispatch the victor which we did with glee (ten year olds have little compassion for anything). Amazing what you can do with drinking straws and carpet tacks (it was ugly...). Naturally, this did little to dissuade the House Sparrows over the subsequent years. In fact, the Barn Swallows ceased to come around entirely when the driveway changed enough to no longer provide the giant mud puddles of former years. No mud for nests==no Barn Swallows.

Jack Bowling Prince George, BC mailto: jbinpg at shaw.ca