Effective way to keep birds away?

[toddster8]

I seem to have an Osprey using my radar as his lunch room. Keeps all the other birds away. Instead of splat, I get duck pieces strewn about. Just kick them in the water. Easy.

Tinsel keeps woodpeckers out of the house eaves and grape vines, but only for a few days - they get used to it. Haven't tried it on the boat.

[HopCar]

A buddy of mine got tired of dealing with gulls. He tells me he has gotten pretty good at hitting them on the fly with a paint ball gun.

[Sailorbob8599]

Originally Posted by cynthia-m

Our Doc Master mentioned stinging up cd's too, maybe we'll try that next for the upper deck area.

Thanks for all the input!

DID THE DOCKMASTER SAY WHAT KIND OF MUSIC THEY LIKE?

[briblack]

we've had the best luck with putting up bird spike strips. the ones we use come from amazon, they're stainless steel and polycarbonate, and don't cost much. we put 'em on the masthead, wind indicator, radar dome, spreaders, etc. not a 100% solution, but it helps.

[Rocinante33]

So......every morning I make myself a BIG plate of scrambled eggs and take it out onto the foredeck........This lets the little buggers know EXACTLY what I am capable of.

(Credit for that one goes to the VHF net at Coconut Grove)

[Rigdaddy]

Originally Posted by goat

I wouldn't use blank CDs for that purpose. If you can find a few CDs by Justin Bieber or Kanye West, you can be doing a public service whilst keeping bird at bay.

goat

Yep, CDs strung on monofilament work the best for me. Poop free for over two years now. Just use whichever ones you can get for free; demo's, instructional for obsolete gear, rap "music", etc.

[oregoncycle]

When I had the cherry orchard I had a pair of plastic peregrine falcons but what worked was also having a recording of falcon calls. Birds scattered once hearing it and gave my orchard a wide berth when flying in the area. I need to only play it a few times per day for a few weeks and then we were clear for the season.

[ALAIN97133]

Originally Posted by cynthia-m

About a month ago we began tying up our 36' mono-hull in a slip in Clearwater, FL. About 2X a week we get over there and I wind up spending the first half-hour or more cleaning off all the bird poop--annoying and pretty gross. In the past when we had that problem we'd tried the string of plastic colored flags from mast to stern, but that didn't do much of anything to help. Just recently tried one of those sonar gizmos, but so far that doesn't seem to be working either. Stringing fishing line in a crisscross pattern above outdoor patio areas works well, but can't imagine setting something like that up on a sailboat. Has anyone come up with a technique that works?

Keep an agressive monkey onboard... you can call it "Trump"
http://viralgifs.com/wp-content/uplo...ace.gif?fb43fe

[cynthia-m]

Originally Posted by goat

I wouldn't use blank CDs for that purpose. If you can find a few CDs by Justin Bieber or Kanye West, you can be doing a public service whilst keeping bird at bay.

goat

Excellent idea!!

[Christian W.]

Originally Posted by cynthia-m

About a month ago we began tying up our 36' mono-hull in a slip in Clearwater, FL. About 2X a week we get over there and I wind up spending the first half-hour or more cleaning off all the bird poop--annoying and pretty gross.

In the past when we had that problem we'd tried the string of plastic colored flags from mast to stern, but that didn't do much of anything to help. Just recently tried one of those sonar gizmos, but so far that doesn't seem to be working either.

Stringing fishing line in a crisscross pattern above outdoor patio areas works well, but can't imagine setting something like that up on a sailboat.

Has anyone come up with a technique that works?

I am in Tasmania - in autumn especially we get Cormorants and Pacific Gulls. I have had better success than anything else I've tried by tying a shackle to each end of a suitable length of 'bird scare tape' (available here as a 1/4 inch nylon tape), then fastening each shackle a rigging screw on each side of the boat. Don't make it too tight, the shackles need to buzz against the metal of the rigging screws. The sound travels up the mast and around the hull. The birds don't like it and neither does anyone unfortunate to be down below.

Something else that used to work when I had a wooden boat was to sprinkle a bit of solvent in strategic places - this worked especially in summer!

[markpierce]

Remove the mast(s). Or get shorter ones. My berth mates have taller masts and I've little problem with birds, except for the spiders.

[jag3man]

I would give the CDs a try. The boat bum who anchors in front of my house uses them. Even though the boat never moves I never see birds nesting.

[craigmandy]

Hello Everyone, I had a problem with Shags on my boat which was on a swing mooring, the smell would make me want to vomit. The only thing to stop the was a portable electric fencing unit. Problem solved.
The birds are not shocked. The unit works by sending a pulse of electricity (tick tick) through a wire across a fiberglass rod fitted to the push pit and pull pit. As the Shags use electro magnetic field of the earth to navigate they react strongly to the current. They will give you a boat at least a 10 m clearance. Regards Craig