People who monitor nestboxes can collect house sparrows eggs and send them to the NC Museum of Natural Sciences. Participants can opt to participate in one of two ways:
Remover– Remove house sparrow eggs and/or nest and make 3 follow up visits to the nestbox and 3 of its neighbors. Can find the instructions and data sheets in the participant files section below. You can find video instructions here: https://youtu.be/NYkpctdSOIc
Swapper– Swap in fake house sparrow eggs and make 3 follow up visits to the nestbox and 3 of its neighbors. Can find the instructions and data sheets in the participant files section below. You can find video instructions here: https://youtu.be/YHtxd-FPsAI
Data collected from follow-up visits will help evaluate the effectiveness of house sparrow management strategies.
Are you a Purple Martin monitor? Look for Purple Martin specific datasheets.
In 2019, we are no longer asking people to send us house sparrow eggs to the Museum. In the past, house sparrow eggs were sent to the Museum to be photographed and analyzed to understand variation in color and speckling of house sparrow eggs across the United States. The eggs will eventually be analyzed for contaminants as part of research to determine whether house sparrow eggs are a useful indicator of human exposure to environmental contaminants.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions at sparrowswap@ncsu.edu
You can also find us on Facebook for more information at www.facebook.com/sparrowswap
To get started, click the join button on the left-hand side of this page.
*Do you trap sparrows? You can still participate! Please write details of any trapping in the comments.