Fake Van Ert Inbox Traps & Do Male House Sparrows Incubate

[Evelyn Cooper]

For those of you all with re-curing House Sparrow problems just go ahead and make fake Van Ert House Sparrow traps and LEAVE the fake traps in the boxes all of the time. These can be made with scraps of the black "felt paper" that builders use under roofing shingles. The 30# weight or thickness works the best, attach these inside the nesting boxes with thumb tacks. The native birds will go up and over these.

Do male House Sparrows incubate eggs? Short answer is no as they do not have a brood patch so they cannot transfer heat from their body to the eggs and neither can they warm up or brood baby birds.

BUT House Sparrows evolved with 7 DIFFERENT species of Starlings in Europe and Asia. The male House Sparrows will guard their nesting boxes from these larger and more aggressive starlings, male House Sparrows seldom leave sight of their nesting box especially when there are eggs and or young birds in it. They evolved to constantly be aware of what is coming near their nesting boxes which makes trapping them harder as they SEE YOU watching them with binoculars:-))

They also are better at guarding their eggs from House Wrens for as soon as the female House Sparrow leaves the box for a food or bathroom break the male enters the box and stays inside the box the whole time the female is gone on her break. THAT is WHY you can go out and hand trap a female sparrow at NIGHT, set a Van Ert Sparrow Trap and catch the male right after first light. Wild birds are awake and singing at LEAST an hour before sunrise!

When you all trap a female sparrow, flip them over and blow on their breast and belly area. You will see that they have pulled out ALL of the belly feathers exposing their breast muscles or the muscles that power their wings or the largest muscle mass on their entire body. When sitting at rest, a female bird that is incubating or laying eggs will have feathers that appear to be covering up their whole breast and belly. This is an illusion as they begin to settle down over their eggs they spread out the feathers and bare skin will be in compete contact with the 4 to 8 eggs depending on clutch size.

Male House Sparrows really do NOT have a harem of females out there. BUT female House Sparrows when preparing to lay eggs and while they are laying eggs WILL breed with as many male House Sparrows as there are in the area. VERY often they will breed with as many as 6 different males in as many minutes. This will continue all during egg laying. This way there is a greater chance of having a higher percentage of their eggs hatch out as this eliminates the chance of her mating with a male that is sterile, where ALL of her eggs would be infertile IF she were monogamous and her mate were sterile. You VERY seldom EVER see a group of House Sparrows fighting among one another EXCEPT when they are establishing or enforcing their "Pecking Order". Keith Kridler Mt. Pleasant, Texas
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