Feathers anyone??

If you have not tried baiting your sparrow traps with little white feathers, you should. The sparrows find them irresistable. Just glue them down (hot glue gun, etc) inside the trap. Poke one or two near the entrace that the can retrieve. This gives them a sense of power and works like catnip!

Interesting, I hadn't tried that before. I'll do that this week!

I'll have to find someone who has chickens and can spare some feathers and try that myself, when the weather breaks. We're getting snow, again. I've been trying to think of another bait to use, something that won't make me worry about catching the wrong birds.

Great Idea!

Perfect, the little down feathers seem to be their preference. If you pre-bait with a couple of feathers they can get, like poked into the entry way or into the ground near the cage, that seems to be just enough to make them crazy! Of course, for this to work, they must be in nest building mode. If they are like the ones here, they are ALWAYS in nest building mode!

You are right Monty, much safer for the other types of birds. I usually try everything, bread, seed, cracked corn, feathers and even little strips of plastic ( kind of like cigarette pack cellophane-they like that too)

I emailed mom and a friend of mine last night, and spoke with another friend who has chickens. I'm going to collect as many as I can, not only for baiting purposes, but also to offer them to the tree swallows for their nests. That's a treat to get the swallows used to you providing them feathers for their nests. Toss a handful into the air and watch their arial acrobatics while scooping them up!

Great ideas there! That sure would be a site monty, hope that works!

Feathers? How do you guys come up with this stuff?

And here I thought I was creative for catching a sparrow in a cricket cage!

It is a sight to see! My neighbor Russell and I both had barn swallows under our eaves, plus his and my tree swallows. I'd take the paper bag of feathers out to his front yard, walk and toss. The swallows came from everywhere. It was beautiful. Some barn swallows would hover to create an airflow to push a feather off the ground, catch it, and off it'd go with its prize. Incredible!

Excellent info thanks. I've used dried grass to camouflage my latest trap. I noticed the HOSP were picking through and flying off my grassy camouflage!