Problem Solving
Controlling House Sparrows at Feeders
House sparrows are hard to exclude because they eat almost anything and fit almost anywhere. The leverage is in seed choice and in the nest boxes they take from native birds.
The short answer
- House sparrows are an introduced species and are not protected by the US Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Their status in Canada is more complicated, and state, provincial and municipal rules still apply, so check locally.
- No feeder cage excludes a house sparrow. At about 6 inches (15 cm) they pass straight through the 1.5 inch (4 cm) grid that stops starlings and grackles.
- Seed choice is the strongest lever: cut millet, cracked corn, milo and bread, and they lose most of what draws them.
- The damage that matters happens at nest boxes, not feeders. A 1 1/8 inch (2.9 cm) entrance hole excludes them entirely from chickadee and wren boxes.
- A bluebird box you do not monitor is worse than no box at all, because house sparrows will claim it and kill what is inside.
There is no feeder that excludes house sparrows. That is the fact everything else has to work around. A house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is about 6 inches (15 cm) long, roughly chickadee-plus in bulk, and it fits through every cage grid sold to stop starlings and grackles. The exclusion tricks that work elsewhere do not transfer.
What does work is taking away the food they prefer, removing the flat surfaces they like to feed on, and controlling the nest boxes where they do real harm to native birds. Feeder raiding is an annoyance. A house sparrow killing an adult bluebird inside her own box is the reason people take this species seriously.
This page covers how to be sure you have house sparrows and not native sparrows, exactly where they sit legally in the US and Canada, the seed and feeder changes ranked by how much they actually help, nest box management in detail, and the popular measures that do nothing.
Confirm it is a house sparrow#
Native sparrows get blamed for this constantly, and they are welcome birds you do not want to discourage.
| What you see | Which bird | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Chunky, gray crown, black bib, chestnut nape, loud monotone chirp, in flocks around buildings | House sparrow (male) | Introduced, year-round, near people |
| Plain dusty brown, pale eyebrow stripe, no streaking below, with the above | House sparrow (female) | Easily mistaken for a native sparrow |
| Heavy brown streaks below with a central breast spot | Song sparrow | Native, protected |
| Rusty cap, clean gray breast, small and slim | Chipping sparrow | Native, protected |
| Bold black and white head stripes, yellow spot before the eye | White-throated sparrow | Native, protected, mostly winter |
| Glossy black, yellow bill in spring, short square tail | European starling | Introduced, different fixes |
The behavioral tell is company and setting. House sparrows travel in noisy mixed-age flocks, feed on the ground and on flat trays, and stay close to buildings, dumpsters, parking lots and livestock. Native sparrows are usually quieter, more scattered, and more tied to brush and edges. The full identification detail is in the house sparrow profile.
Where they stand legally#
House sparrows were introduced to North America in the 1850s and have no protection under the US Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which covers native species. The same is broadly true of the European starling.
Not protected is not the same as unregulated
Federal law is only one layer. States, provinces and cities have their own wildlife, nuisance-animal, firearms and trapping rules, and some of them do apply to non-native birds. In Canada the Migratory Birds Convention Act does not cover house sparrows, but provincial wildlife acts regulate them in some contexts, and the details vary province to province. Check your own jurisdiction before acting on anything.
This site stays with exclusion, seed choice and nest box management. Lethal control is legal in much of the US and some people practice it, particularly bluebird landlords. It is your decision to research and make, and it is not something we coach here. What we will say is that half-measures are the worst outcome: a trap or a box left unmonitored causes more harm to native birds than doing nothing.
Cut the foods they want#
House sparrows are seed generalists with a strong preference for small grains, which is convenient because those grains are the filler in cheap mixes anyway.
Stop offering white proso millet, cracked corn, milo, wheat and bread. Millet is the biggest single draw. If juncos and doves are the reason you were putting it out, offer it in a small measured amount on the ground at dusk, when house sparrow flocks have gone to roost, rather than all day in a hopper.
Read the label on any mix before you buy it. A bag that lists millet, milo or wheat in the first three ingredients is a house sparrow subscription, and the guidance for decoding those labels is in reading a seed mix label. Bread and kitchen scraps are worth cutting for several reasons at once, which are set out in what not to feed birds.
What to offer instead:
- Safflower seed. Deters many house sparrows and most squirrels, grackles and starlings, while cardinals, chickadees, titmice and house finches eat it. Honest caveat: house sparrows in some yards do learn to eat safflower, so it is a layer, not a wall.
- Striped sunflower. The thick shell is hard work for a house sparrow bill and easy for cardinals, jays and woodpeckers. It slows them down without excluding them.
- Nyjer seed in a proper finch feeder. House sparrows largely ignore nyjer, and the tiny ports on a nyjer feeder suit goldfinch bills rather than theirs.
- Whole peanuts in the shell and suet in a cage. Both are awkward for them and fine for woodpeckers, nuthatches and titmice.
Avoid sunflower hearts and no-mess blends while you are fighting a house sparrow flock. Hulled seed is exactly what they want: no shell to open, high energy, eaten fast.
Feeder design: what helps and what does not#
| Fix | Rough cost | How well it works | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Remove millet, corn, milo and bread | Free, or saves money | High | The single biggest lever |
| Take away flat trays and platforms | Free | Moderate to high | They prefer to feed standing on a surface |
| Switch to safflower | Low | Moderate | Works in many yards, not all |
| Nyjer in a small-port finch feeder | Low | High for that feeder | Protects finch feeding specifically |
| Whole striped sunflower | Low | Low to moderate | Slows them, does not stop them |
| Feed farther from buildings | Free | Moderate | They stay near structures |
| Weight-activated feeder | Moderate | Low | Sparrows are too light to trip most closures |
| Caged feeder, 1.5 in (4 cm) grid | Moderate | None for sparrows | They pass straight through |
| Ultrasonic or plastic-owl deterrents | Moderate | Negligible | No lasting effect in yards |
Two design points are worth the effort. First, house sparrows like to feed on a flat surface with a clear view, so removing seed trays and platform feeders costs them more than it costs chickadees and finches, which feed happily from a hanging tube. Second, a feeder hung on a thin swinging line in open lawn is less attractive to a flock than one on a rigid post near a hedge or a wall.
Move the feeding away from the building
House sparrows nest and roost in eaves, vents, signage and wall cavities, and they rarely commute far to feed. Moving your station 30 to 50 feet (9 to 15 m) from the house, into open ground with cover nearby but no wall, thins the flock noticeably in some yards. Do it gradually using the method in moving a feeder without losing the birds.
Nest boxes: the part that actually matters#
House sparrows are cavity nesters and aggressive ones. They will enter an occupied box, destroy eggs, kill nestlings and sometimes kill an incubating adult, then build on top. Eastern bluebirds, tree swallows, chickadees, house wrens and purple martins all lose nests to them.
The entrance hole is the control that works without any effort from you:
| Hole size | Excludes house sparrows | Admits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 1/8 in (2.9 cm) | Yes | Chickadees, house wrens, Carolina wrens |
| 1 1/4 in (3.2 cm) | Mostly | Titmice, nuthatches, small wrens |
| 1 1/2 in (3.8 cm) | No | Bluebirds, tree swallows, and house sparrows |
There is no hole that admits a bluebird and excludes a house sparrow, because the two birds are close in size. So bluebird boxes have to be managed rather than engineered. Site them in open ground at least 100 feet (30 m) from buildings and farmyards, pair them 15 to 20 feet (4.5 to 6 m) apart so a tree swallow can hold the second box, and check them weekly through the season. Removing house sparrow nest material in the US is legal, and doing it repeatedly does discourage a pair. Full siting and sizing detail is in nest boxes: sizing and siting, and the species side is in how to attract bluebirds.
Do not put up a box you will not check
An unmonitored bluebird box within sight of a building usually becomes a house sparrow box, and often an ecological trap that kills the native birds it attracted. If you cannot commit to a weekly check from March through August, take the box down or fit it with a 1 1/8 inch (2.9 cm) hole and let the chickadees have it.
Two other measures are widely used by bluebird monitors and worth knowing. A sparrow spooker is a light frame of hanging mylar strips mounted above the box entrance, put up only after the first bluebird egg is laid and taken down after fledging; bluebirds tolerate it and house sparrows generally will not approach it. Slot-entrance boxes and thin-walled PVC designs are reported to be less attractive to house sparrows than a standard wooden box, though results vary by site and neither is absolute.
What does not work#
Ultrasonic devices, plastic owls and reflective spinners. House sparrows habituate to static objects within days. A hawk silhouette stuck on a window is a window-strike measure, not a deterrent to anything.
Hanging monofilament halos. Fine line strung above a feeder has been tried as a house sparrow deterrent with some reported success, but loose line and netting around feeders is an entanglement risk for birds, bats and squirrels, and this site does not recommend it.
Taking the feeder down for a day. A one-day pause resets a grackle flock. It does nothing to a resident house sparrow population that lives 40 feet away in your gutter and eats everything.
Buying a different feeder. There is no sparrow-proof feeder. Anything sold as one is either a nyjer feeder or a cage, and you already know what the cage does.
A setup that works#
- Black oil or striped sunflower and safflower in hanging tube feeders, no trays, no platform.
- Nyjer in a small-port finch feeder for goldfinches and siskins.
- Suet in a cage or an upside-down feeder, which also keeps starlings off it.
- No millet, corn, milo, wheat, bread or hulled sunflower while the flock is a problem.
- The station sited 30 feet (9 m) or more from the house, with the ground below swept weekly so spill does not hold them, as covered in seed mess, hulls and dead grass.
- Building cavities, vents and eave gaps screened off in fall, before nesting starts.
- Nest boxes either 1 1/8 inch (2.9 cm) hole, or monitored weekly from March to August.
Give the seed change three to four weeks. Flocks that have fed on millet in your yard for years do not leave the first morning the millet is gone, and the birds you want will take a little time to find what replaced it.
Frequently asked questions#
Are house sparrows protected by law in the United States?
No. House sparrows are an introduced species and are not covered by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which protects native birds only. State, provincial and city ordinances can still apply, and rules on discharging anything or handling animals vary widely, so check your local regulations before acting. This site covers exclusion and nest box management rather than lethal control, which is a decision for you and not something we coach.
Are house sparrows protected in Canada?
The federal Migratory Birds Convention Act does not cover them, but provincial wildlife legislation in Canada does regulate non-native birds in some contexts, and the details differ by province. Check your provincial wildlife authority before you assume anything is permitted.
What seed do house sparrows not like?
They largely leave nyjer alone, they cannot manage nyjer feeder ports well, and they are slower to take whole striped sunflower because the shell is thick for their bill. Safflower deters many of them but is not reliable: in some yards house sparrows learn to eat it within a season. What they love is white millet, cracked corn, milo, bread and sunflower hearts.
Will a caged feeder keep house sparrows out?
No. A caged feeder with the standard 1.5 inch (4 cm) grid is built to exclude starlings, grackles and squirrels, and a house sparrow slips through it with room to spare. Cages help with almost every other feeder pest, just not this one.
How do I stop house sparrows from taking my bluebird box?
Monitor the box weekly through the breeding season and remove house sparrow nest material as it appears, which is legal in the US. Use boxes with a 1 1/8 inch (2.9 cm) hole for chickadees and wrens, mount bluebird boxes in open ground well away from buildings, and consider a sparrow spooker, which is a set of hanging mylar strips fitted above the box only after the bluebird has laid her first egg.