I have a lovely 5 stall barn with an amazing amount barn swallows. They are beautiful to watch and they have done well with keeping the bugs down. HOWEVER, this EVIL SPARROW is evicting them from their nests and killing their babies. I have already tried swatting the bird out of the barn numerous times but the bastard keeps returning. Any ideas on how to get rid of the sparrow while keeping the swallows happy? Thanks in advance.
Good luck! If someone comes in with an answer that actually works, I will praise them. I lost all my barn swallows years ago and have an indoor with god only knows how many sparrows.
Fortunately though, there are a few swallow nests at my neighbor’s loafing shed so Mom and Pop swallow still come and dive when I’m mowing. 
Starting with last spring when I lost my last horse, sold all the hay, and closed all the doors the amount of sparrow nests decreased some. This year so far there are only one or 2 nests which is huge improvement but the birds still can squeeze in under the doors. I get ground heave in the winter on all the doors and the large/tall/heavy double slider splits open enough they can fly in. I’m gong to have my handyman put a thin board over where it splits and hope I can keep the buggers out just to stop the bird crap problem. :sigh:
Sorry to say that after some English House Sparrows killed our nesting bluebirds and attempted to take over some barn swallow nests in the barn, we eliminated the males with a small shotgun. They are easy targets as their song is quite distinctive as are their markings. We dispatched one year before last and one last year, and although there is one singing this summer in the distance, he has hasn’t come close enough to be a problem as far as we know. We have had a huge problem with corn and rat snakes in the bluebird boxes and up in the barn rafters. After they cleaned out all of the barn swallow nests last year, I put up that netting that you can get at garden stores to keep birds out of berry shrubs. I just wadded it up and tied it around beams and uprights and rafters. Didn’t catch any last summer, but just 2 days ago we found two huge rat snacks entangled high up on uprights at either end of the barn. We were able to cut one out and release it in a wetland area up the road, but the other had died. The swallows are on their third nesting of the summer with four populated nests right now. Those snakes would have decimated them. There is a lot of information on line, I think one of the websites is something like Sialis, about how to manage English House Sparrow and snake bird nest predation.
Since I got barn cats, the ONLY birds that are still around the barn are the swallows.
They seem to delight in swooping down on the cats, getting within a few inches.
They abandoned the nests actually IN the barn, but have plenty of nests elsewhere on the property.
But the sparrows, grackles and pigeons have moved away.
We only have swallows…and they are having an absolute field day dive-bombing the cats Our black cat, Bear, seems completely oblivious; the other, Tiger (our traveling cat, for those who followed her story in “The Menagerie”) not so much. Tiger leaps off her feet every time she’s dive-bombed. It’s kind of funny.
I put up “decoy” nest boxes for the house sparrows. They are bluebird sized and mounted like bluebird boxes, but fixed so I can easily take them down and clean them out. I take them down every three weeks or so during nesting season and clean out the nests and eggs. Keeps the sparrows busy and eliminates any new ones. I still have them, but they seem to coexist a bit better with the martins and swallows.
What ToTheNines said.
I’ve gone so far as to let the sparrows build in them, then trap the female on the eggs at night, with a piece of duct tape over the hole. Then I take the box with me to work, 30 miles away, and release the female and dump the eggs. The male usually moves on.
Now I have a trap that looks like a blue bird house. It’s super, but you have to make sure it’s a sparrow that you’ve caught. I put the whole trap in a trash bag, then open the trap a bit to see for sure. Getting rid of the male seems to work just fine. I found the trap at BestNest online.
I’m proud to say, after years of struggles, that we’re a House Sparrow free zone.
We have lots of Swallows, 14 nests with the first ones to arrive in April and 6 more that must have had to come from much father south because the April arrivals and their hatchlings are long gone and the second round have just hatched a week ago or so.
We also have lots of Sparrows, Starlings, etc. . But we never have a problem with them taking over the Swallow’s nest. Maybe it just how our barn is laid out. Old bank barn, with an upper and “lower” isle way. The “upper” ceiling is around 9’ where they build nests and the lower is 10+.
We do have cats. One of which is an excellent “hunter”. Great barn cat but unfortunately he does catch the odd swallow. So, maybe Janet is right, get a barn cat. I don’t know because we have always had barn cats.
We have lots of Swallows, 14 nests with the first ones to arrive in April and 6 more that must have had to come from much father south because the April arrivals and their hatchlings are long gone and the second round have just hatched a week ago or so.
We also have lots of Sparrows, Starlings, etc. . But we never have a problem with them taking over the Swallow’s nest. Maybe it just how our barn is laid out. Old bank barn, with an upper and “lower” isle way. The “upper” ceiling is around 9’ where they build nests and the lower is 10+.
We do have cats. One of which is an excellent “hunter”. Great barn cat but unfortunately he does catch the odd swallow. So, maybe Janet is right, get a barn cat. I don’t know because we have always had barn cats.
We have many swallows 
Not as many sparrows. A couple of years ago we bought a repeating sparrow trap http://www.sparrowtraps.net/
Works great.
[QUOTE=MoonLadyIsis;8237408]
I have a lovely 5 stall barn with an amazing amount barn swallows. They are beautiful to watch and they have done well with keeping the bugs down. HOWEVER, this EVIL SPARROW is evicting them from their nests and killing their babies. I have already tried swatting the bird out of the barn numerous times but the bastard keeps returning. Any ideas on how to get rid of the sparrow while keeping the swallows happy? Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]
I use a precision airgun.
David
