Well here it is nearing the end of August 1998. For us down here in the Southern part of the U.S. it's been hot and really dry. August also means that the local Martins have fledged their young and have left for the season, a very lonely time of the year for the Purple Martin landlord. But hey! That only means its time to start up all of those projects you can only do best when they are gone, right? You know...repaint the guards, add another house, clean out old nests, rearrange perches and so forth. O.K. so it doesn't completely fill the void but it's something to do! For me, late summer meant finally taking some time to revive an old idea for a Starling trap I designed back in the seventies. We had our first Purple Martin colony in the city and the Starlings were a problem---BIG problem! Since moving to the country I've noticed far fewer Starlings but alas, civilization is catching up to us with us out here. Subdivisions are popping up everywhere and as the "country" slowly undergoes metamorphoses the Starlings are closing in on our Martin colony. Maybe growth had nothing to do with it; it may have just taken that long for them to find me! Regardless, it was time to do something about the growing Starling population.

It was around 1978 when I came up with the idea for a repeating nestbox trap for Starlings and Sparrows. While I was in the carport sawing and banging away on this contraption my backyard neighbor Mr. White dropped in to say hello and to see what I was doing. He was a wonderful man; a martin landlord well versed in trapping and it was then I learned about the history of nestbox traps. Seems his father had made such a trap to control these pests many, many years before. Mr. White himself had also built a very clever design which used no levers or counterbalances. In fact it had no moving parts whatsoever except a trap door at the rear. His incorporated a series of carefully mounted mirrors inside the box to fool the victim into leaving through what appeared to be the only exit hole available----right into a holding pen! I wish I had paid more attention to this trapping genius back then. A clear lesson to all of us young whipper snappers, a lesson I will never forget because the plans for this masterpiece departed with him.

Whether your trap uses FOOD or a potential NEST SITE as the lure, most repeating designs use a simple "lever" as the mechanism. Basically speaking, the Sparrow or Starling is lured into the trap where he then steps onto one end of a carefully balanced lever. The weight of the bird drops him down to a lower level where, in a panic, the victim darts out through any escape route he can find. This "escape route" is a one-way door into a holding pen. Once the weight of the bird is off the counterbalanced lever, it returns to is normal position awaiting its next victim. The capacity for such a design is limited only by the size of the holding pen. There are dozens of very good repeating traps designed using this same general principal. The NB-Compact works using this same age-old design.

For me, Starlings have always been difficult to trap. Unlike Sparrows they are hard to lure in with food. If you are lucky enough to catch one as a decoy in your holding pen you can have some success attracting others but as a general rule these guys are very leery and tough to coax. The one weakness they have is the inability to leave another bird's nestbox alone. They love to investigate every possible nest site they can, usurping nests, breaking eggs and killing young birds. This infatuation with destruction can lead to their undoing with a carefully placed nestbox trap.

To the Starling or Sparrow the NB-Compact looks exactly like a garden-variety birdhouse atop a 9' pole. It's a small lightweight "box style" house with a single 2 1/4" entrance hole and a small porch...VERY enticing for our two little pest species. Once the bird jumps into the house the entire nesting cavity, which is at one end of a lever, drops about 3" exposing a single escape route through the rear of the house. The rear exit leads them down through a 4" diameter pipe to the holding pen that is easily reachable from the ground. The original design called for a holding pen attached to the house itself, so did Mr. Whites 1950's design, but dragging out the step ladder to remove each catch can get little old. The idea for the 4" pipe was borrowed from the designers of the "S&S Controller". A brilliant idea that brings the trapped birds down to a more suitable level...no ladder needed.

Before calling on cousin Al to build this thing, the guy with the engineering degree, please take heart. It's easier than you may think. The "moving nesting cavity" is simply a coffee can with both ends removed. DO NOT DISPOSE OF THE DARK BROWN GRANULES WITHIN THE CAN...WHEN BREWED THEY MAKE AN INTERESTING HOT DRINK. The 4" pipe is a simple section of clothes dryer vent you can get at any home improvement store. Even if you have poor mechanical skills you can probably complete this project...if your skills are "average" it may even work. Seriously, I recreated mine in 2 afternoons after work, a total of 5 hours or so and I was going by memory. You've got PLANS to go by! Let's get started.

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