Apparently, the house sparrow (HOSP) is quite invasive and is a non-native species. People who want to attract bluebirds are quite adamant about ridding boxes of these nests....I think I even read on one of the websites: "It is better to not have a box at all then to let the house sparrow reproduce in one." It seems that they are the bluebirds' biggest competitors and will attack adult bluebirds. There are a lot of people who are quite protective of bluebirds! Since it's non-native, there are no laws preventing people from removing (or even destroying) the nests, eggs or birds themselves. I don't think I could actually ever kill a bird but I felt better knowing there were no eggs that I was harming. I went ahead and removed this nest because I read that the sparrows can nest other places just fine so they don't even need the houses, they just like to evict the bluebirds. Well, I have one daddy sparrow that's going to be livid that I removed his wonderful creation -- I'll have to check probably a couple more times that they don't come back. But the nest itself came out in one piece so Derek is taking it to his class for "show and tell."
Also, notice how the mouth of the nest is at the top and actually is like a tunnel....the picture below is the nest from the back and you can see where the eggs might have been at the bottom of the nest.
1 comment:
How very interesting! I bet Derek's class will love seeing it!
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