Hi Tweeters,

House Sparrows have been eating us out of house and home this fall. I
have had up to 100 of them under my feeders at one time. They were
even scaring the other sparrows and juncos away.

Several years ago I made a device that was supposed to scare House
Sparrows away. It was a large wire ring that was suspended from the
feeders. Thin wires were hung from the ring with small weights on the
end. The weights would swing and sway and that movement scared the
House Sparrows away. It was a nuisance, though, so I took it down.

I have the feeders in a 7" X 7" flower bed on the west side of the
shed in our backyard. Saturday I made a small fence around the bed.
I drove metal stakes in the corners of the bed and wired 1x2s to the
stakes. The 1x2s are about 20 inches off the ground. I tied pieces
of pink plastic tape on the 1x2s, spacing the tape about 12 inches
apart. The tape moves almost constantly. I haven't seen a House
Sparrow in our yard since Saturday afternoon. None of the other birds
seem to be bothered by the tape.

The fence with the pink plastic tape on it is not attractive but it is
affective. No House Sparrows! There are even more White-crowned and
Golden-crowned Sparrows at the feeders now than I saw before I put the
fence up.

I hope all of the House Sparrows that were are my feeders didn't just
go over to John Hebert's house, which is only about three blocks away.

A photo of my bird feeding area is in the new photos folder on my website.

Denny Granstrand


*? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *? ?? *
Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA
dgranstrand AT gmail.com
Denny Granstrand's bird photos can be seen at:
www.granstrand.net/gallery/