Sometimes the best way to hide an eyesore is to distract from it with something really beautiful to look at elsewhere. Trying to hide something may only serve to call attention to it. Are you happy with the rest of your back garden? Focus on making it an attractive and useful area. A black chain link fence will tend to visually disappear into the neighbor's planned landscaping -- depending on what is planted, of course. Perhaps all that is needed is some patience? A photo would reveal more of the story.

If you do the math on the ability of this species to reproduce (2-3 nestings with 4-7 chicks per nesting) and the average life span (roughly 12 years), you realize how eliminating one breeding pair has the potential to have a tremendous benefit on species diversity, even within a small area. Kate: Sounds like you have had a lot of success. The Huber trap is a great idea. There are also others that are nice. Here is the web site for one: http://www.vanerttraps.com/universal.htm You may be aware of this, but I just think this caution bears saying for those who are reading: The one problem with putting in-box traps in a bank of martin houses is that you are likely to trap native birds as well. You have to monitor these kinds of traps hourly (which might be hard given the height of them) to make sure that the trapped bird is the intended target species. If it is not, you actually risk the life of the native bird(s), which, of course, is illegal as well as inhumane. So monitoring is absolutely essential. I would agree with everything else that you have mentioned. Certainly the males are the ones that control the area and have the most potential to harm native birds through passive and active competition. Most people who do this would agree that one of the best ways to catch them is with in-box traps during the heat of the nesting season. They are very saavy about ground traps. You can sometimes bait the ground traps with nesting materials that are glued to a heavy piece of wood (ripped plastic tarp material, trash, tissues, yarn, etc.). The best season to catch the adult males (and females) is the early spring. During the summer, it is best to use a ground trap baited with white bread. You can catch young birds and females by the dozen this way. I have included a link for a very good repeating ground trap. Good luck to you Rose. I think that everything here is really true and if more people would consider doing a small piece of this big problem species diversity could be noticably improved. Of course, this is all contingent on the laws in Canada. Here is a link that might be useful: Repeating Ground Trap

So glad you finally had success. Too bad you had to go through all that though. But you did gain some knowledge!!

Hi Cindy! I don't anything beats a wooden rolling pin. I like the french ones as well, they're simplicity in motion. Since you're making pies, a white marble one might be nice for keeping your pastry cold, and it would go with your kitchen. The thing about those is that they're heavy, which you could look at as doing some of the work for you, OR too heavy to handle. (I guess it depends on where you are in your life at the moment!) Rolling pins are a very personal choice, aren't they?