A House Sparrow Isn't Likely To Be A Bird You Welcome To Your Bird Feeder - Here's Why
While it's good to promote a diverse bird community and provide a welcoming environment for a variety of species if you're looking to attract birds, there are a few reasons you might want to keep house sparrows away. Having house sparrows around can be beneficial since they consume a variety of insects and pests like aphids, beetles, and caterpillars, which can help your garden. They can also add a cheerful ambiance with their chirping. However, they are notorious for disrupting ecosystems.
House sparrows are not native to North America but are highly adaptable and can thrive in various types of habitats, which is why they are so common. As an invasive species, they can spread diseases, be aggressive to other birds, and quickly dominate anywhere they settle. They breed a lot and monopolize bird feeders, causing you to spend more on food and preventing other birds from coming to the area. House sparrows also attack other birds in more direct ways by harming them and taking over their nests.
How to keep them out
Native species, like swallows and bluebirds, are especially vulnerable when house sparrows are around so it's crucial to protect them at your bird feeder to help maintain biodiversity in your area. One way to do this is to keep a close eye on your feeder. By observing the birds that stop by or the nests left behind, you will know what types come by and how to move forward. If house sparrows are present, scare them off with various types of decoys. You can also shake their nests when they've laid eggs so they don't hatch, or remove their nests completely.
Another way to keep them out is to leave out the few types of food they don't like and stop leaving out what they flock to. They like cheap bird food like bread, millet, and cracked corn, but avoid seeds with hard shells like peanuts, whole corn kernels, and nyjer seed. If you don't want to keep them out completely, you can set out the food they like in a separate area so the other birds don't have to compete with them.
Other species to keep out
Maintaining a bird feeder in your backyard is an interesting hobby because it attracts various types, especially throughout the seasons. Keeping out bully birds is important so you can see and take care of a good variety, instead of being limited to experiencing only a few. Some other bully birds to discourage from your house feeder are starlings, grackles, and brown-headed cowbirds.
Starlings and grackles — which are also invasive species just as house sparrows — can be kept out with feeder styles that are more conducive for smaller birds so they can't access the food supply and take over. You can also employ predator sounds to keep out starlings. Brown-headed cowbirds are brood parasites, meaning they remove eggs from the nests of other bird species and place theirs so they can raise them. By discouraging them with feeders made for smaller birds and shelled seeds, you can prevent them from breeding in this way and impacting the growth of other bird species.