Repeating Elevator Live Bird - Sparrow Trap

[Zip-in-Z]

I live in town & using air guns are restricted, so I bought a sling shot & marbles to control the American Tree Sparrows & other nuisance birds that invaded my birdie log houses this past spring. The Tree Swallows that nested in previous years were under constant attack by the Sparrows. The Sparrows would try to move into their nest any chance they had. Was able to kill one male Sparrow but the female found another partner and the battle continued.

Some here may recall my thread “How to get Sparrows out of Tree Swallows House ???”, Big Lou from Sherwood Park area was kind enough to send me a P/M with pics of a trap and after some further research I garage engineered one and made a number of improvements to what’s commercially available in the USA for $100.00 CDN/delivered. I had the material lying around in the shed and only needed to buy the ½” x ½” x 5 ft wire mesh at Home Depot ($15.00) and some misc. items (nuts, bolts, washers, rubber <$5.00) my total cost was less than $20.00 considering my shop time is therapeutic & free.

I have some regular bird seed, need to find some white millet, I read that’s what Sparrows prefer. Also have to fine tune the balance beam elevator, read the weight of 3 quarters are equivalent to a Sparrow and will trigger the elevator, for lighter birds such as Chickadee’s they can go in & out & won’t get caught. The trap includes an integrated shelter box for the Sparrows to use in case of a predator (cat) and it’s suggested to put some seed & water in the trap & keep at least 3-4 Sparrows for decoys. I don’t intend releasing any captured Sparrows someplace out of town, Sparrows do a lot of damage to the song bird population, they will be dispatched accordingly.

The benefit of a live bird trap is you can release any species that you’re not targeting.

A few pic’s if you wish to build one …. Enjoy.

Cheers

David






Garage Engineered the Plan




Built the Main Section first




Then the Balance Beam Elevator Section




Needed to Buy ½” x 1 ½” Bolt, Washer & Nut for Counter Balance Weight




Assembled to Determine where to Locate the Access Trap Door




2 ¼” Access Hole




Used Acrylic Plastic for the Hinged Trap Door




Back Access Door


Used Rubber Floor Mat to Prevent the Birds from Escaping when Open Door






Integrated Shelter Box with Access Door






Add some Bird Seed for Bait




Completed Repeating Elevator Sparrow Trap








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The Mrs said to use her X-Mass Birdies for demo purposes.





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[Big Lou]

Looks good Zip! Glad I could help. I’ll have to send you some pics of the Starling trap I’ve built. Same repeating trap principle but faux Purple Martin house. It works light a hot damn. Caught quite a number of sparrows in it as well.

[WV911]

Thats pretty cool.

Let me take a wild guess, you are retired?

[Pixel Shooter]

Awesome job. This is on my list. I reached out to Lou but u beat me to it lol. May have to try and tackle this winter

[Dewey Cox]

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

[NCC]

Looks good.

Are these available commercially? The starlings have taken over one of my out buildings. I shoot the hell out of them with a 12 gauge and got a dozen or so with tannerite but it hasn’t dented the population. I’d like to try a couple of traps this spring.

Edit: I just looked online and see there’s hundreds for sale. I just need to determine with ones are the most effective.

[LeroyvdH]

Nice work. I was starting to wonder how you got the hats on the birds.

[nsmitchell]

Originally Posted by Dewey Cox

What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?

African or European?

[Strix]

My brother built the same trap and placed it in his garden in the city. I was astonished at how effective the trap was. When I asked him what he did with the sparrows he caught he said he “relocated” them to the city dump. Incidentally, it is the introduced House Sparrows, AKA English Sparrows, that you are discouraging. The American Tree Sparrow is a native species that only migrates through Alberta to their Arctic nesting grounds.

[Zip-in-Z]

Tks guys for the feedback.

Big Lou .... tks again, I'm hoping to catch & remove a few before we travel to California for 3 months & upon my return get the rest of them before the Tree Swallows arrive.

Retirement is never boring, most often I'm too busy to find the time to start some of my projects, but when I do they always get completed & you stand back feel satisfied that you accomplished something today. Now I have to clean out the garage.

The Mrs found those birdies with the matching toque's a few years ago, one very cold December morning she put 2 of them in the bird feeder, the Chickadee's didn't mind them the Finches didn't care for them .... LOL.

I also looked at some of the live traps on line & determined they would be easy to build & made a few improvements in my project.

Guess I watched the American YouTube video too many times, made the mistake they are the House Sparrows, not American Sparrows.

Hope these Swallows don't have to defend their nest next season.

D


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[Zip-in-Z]

The sparrows around our place have somewhat disappeared over the winter. I'm starting to see a few more handing around looking at my nest box's, time to drag out the live trap.

Member Oldjeda inquired about the overall dimensions, I found a few You-Tube video's and made mine from left over material from previous saw dust projects.

Overall size is 26" L x 17" W x 10" H. The first pic of my plan helps with determining the approx. length & finding the balance point for the beam. I purchased the screen and the misc hardware from Home Depot.

Cheers

David

[Ken07AOVette]

Great thread. Good reboot too.

Sparrows are on the endangered species list here this year. I have a real nice quiet pcp air rifle now, gonna stack them up. They are already blocking swallow houses and climbing on each others backs on the power lines, just barely above freezing. Randy little buggers.

I counted 40 of them on the deck at the sunflower seeds one day.

[EZM]

Very cool project. Love to see a video on how it works.

As far as air guns in the city, "a friend of mine" told me a good airsoft works wonders on dispatching small birds (and they are quieter) ....... but hey, I have no "first hand knowledge" as that would against the bylaws in the city and would never want to engage in unlawful activity myself.

[Ken07AOVette]

Originally Posted by EZM

Very cool project. Love to see a video on how it works.

As far as air guns in the city, "a friend of mine" told me a good airsoft works wonders on dispatching small birds (and they are quieter) ....... but hey, I have no "first hand knowledge" as that would against the bylaws in the city and would never want to engage in unlawful activity myself.

Hanging back inside a room with an open window works well too apparently if the muzzle is a ways away from the window. Remove the screen first though haha

[Zip-in-Z]

Not mine ... someone posted a You-Tube video of a store bought Sparrow trap they can be purchased for $100.00 mine cost me $20.00 for materials.

D.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv4VdrrIodo




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[oldjeda]

Thanks for the YouTube link. I can see why you decided to build it yourself. Not much there for $100 US. The design looks interesting though. My dad gave me a funnel type sparrow trap he had. Nothing came closer than 4 feet to it, at his place or mine which is why I think he was not reluctant to part with it.

[FCLightning]

I built one of these a few years ago. Whether it is an abundance of feed all around the area or what is the deal but never had a sparrow enter into it in two years of having it set out.
It was interesting though that the chickadees learned to fly straight through to the feed and back out without landing on the elevator portion.

[kens]

I built the same a few years ago, put it near a feeder which uninvited sparrows liked. Never caught a single bird!

It looked like a great idea.