After the English sparrows take over my blue bird box, the rat trap gets deployed. 3rd one in 2 weeks.
Bluebirds are scared of the English and avoid the boxes after pests take ownership of the box.

I have a live Sparrow trap.

But just cleaning out the sparrow nest after Bluebirds show up allow the bluebirds take over.

Just caught the female. Now box is ready for bluebirds.

What is that ?

Try reading the post. I know it is a two liner, but work at it.

How many blue birds did you catch in the meantime?

I’m guessing the Bluebirds arnt there yet.

I never seen a rat trap do that job .thanks for the idea..but the blue birds are already here...

Good job

Never seen a rat trap used to catch flying mice

I built a wren/chickadee house and hung it a week or so ago. Had a couple chickadees start building a nest, then sparrows tried to take it over. They won't fit through the hole, but it seems they ran off the chickadees. Maybe, a couple of teens will show up. They don't take crap from sparrows. LOL

Never catch bluebirds in the trap, because the rat trap I’d deployed after the aggressive sparrows take over the box. After I can the pair, I don’t reset the trap, just hope the bluebird nest.
I have 4 boxes on my property and usually get 2 nesting pairs of bb’s.

I can see why someone asked what is that. At a quick glance it looks like a tiny pig head with bird feet. It took me a while to focus on the beak and then the sparrow appeared

I have never seen a sparrow that looked to be that big ! I thought some eastern magpie with all that white .

Never heard of "Black Bib " is that a nick name for E sparrow ?

you must not have a lot of sparrows, here you'd never get through them, an old friend of mine used to battle them with a pellet rifle to keep them out of his martin houses. He'd raise the houses right before the martins usually show up and sit in his shop sniping sparrows...

At old house, used to do the same with starlings on a flicker box. Flickers would try, then get run off by starlings. Would whack dozens of starlings before the tree rats took over. In over 5 years, never had one set of flickers make it. Eventually took the box down. At new place, we have poor man's martins.......aka, barn swallows. Have at least 5 nesting pairs in the barn.

We also have bluebirds, purple and yellow finches and all manner of other song birds. No nest boxes. Don't know where they build their nests, but they manage to do it on their own. Frees me up from having to stand guard all day long.

Only problem I have with starlings now is they see the downspout in the gutter, think it's a place to build a nest, dive in and can't get out. Downspouts go into drain tiles. They must eventually compost themselves away. I hear you can build effective starling traps that work on same principle.