Plea for Swallow-box-hole-size data


Our back Violet Greens finally fledged their kids today, many weeks after our front family did. There was a time when I wouldn?t have expected this happy outcome. That began when about two weeks into their first attempt I happened to look up at the house and saw two House Sparrows, a male and a female, emerge instead of a swallow (a strangely Hitchcockian moment). After several days, however the Violet Green parents started anew in a different house lower down from the roof with the same hole-size and were never seriously bothered by House Sparrows there, and have now succeeded.
The box that was intruded by House Sparrows is the same one I sold occasionally at bird festivals, the old Rainier Audubon Boxes made with a 2? x 7/8 slot. We also received news that one of these same boxes has essentially become a House Sparrow factory in South Seattle. The owners of this box say only the females can access the box, but that they use the 7/8 diameter extra hole for the third baby that was in the some of the boxes I sold. (For some unknown reason unless it was hostile action by the Violet Greens, the House Sparrows at our house did not nest in any of the boxes on our house despite the fact that they gained entrance to one that held VGs).
Anyway, it seems like the writing is on the wall for the 7/8? slot boxes, and I think I should replace them with tougher boxes for next year. I?d also like to buy some boxes wholesale and try to sell them again this year and now I would like to know if any one has any experience with the diamond-shaped-hole box but out by Chickadee Hut of Abbotsford BC and sold at the Seattle Audubon Society store on 8050 35th Ave NE. I?d particularly like to know if anyone has seen any House Sparrow get in one of these. Their diamond reaches 7/8 at its peak.

I?d also like to know if anyone puts out an even smaller hole that works. It amazes me what these birds can get into, even though, in the spring they like to cling to the side of the box, hitching themselves up and looking for all the world like the hole is too small. It isn?t though, and nobody watching swallows do this should ever get out the jigsaw like I did once long ago.


PS. We saw the Barred Owl pretty close near the main path through Seward Park on Sunday. This bird(?) has twice used me and Delia as a moving blind for hunting Song Sparrows, so it?s not very skittish.

Ed Newbold newboldwildife at netscape.net residential Beacon Hill Seattle, WA


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