Seagulls on my Boat

[endoftheroad]

We don't have problems with Seagulls here in Key West.
The nuisance birds here are the black ducks. Yeah, I know for sure someone here will scold me for being politically incorrect.
I had the ducks roosting on my spreaders. I bought a 4-5 foot strip of aluminum at Homo Depot and tied survey flag tape to it to tickle the birds in the face.
I hoist it up my staysail forestay using zip ties on the halyard.
Works like a charm, nary a bird since, cheap and effective.

[svmariane]

Seeing how it's Sunday and the bleedin' church chimes awoke me at zero-dark-thirty, I'm in the mood to post this:

Seagull Control...

1) Rumor has it that hollow point .22 cal is effective.

2) A small fish hook within a chunk of bread, tied with six foot or so of monofilament to another similar hook/bread - until you've a string of a half dozen or so. Feed the birds. Watch the acrobatics when one bird attempts to fly whilst attached to others.

(Seagulls aren't an endangered species, are they?)













Can I say stuff like that on CF? Oh, all right... The hooks are inhumane. The 22 can't be fired in the marina. Just passing thoughts. Seems the church chimes didn't put me in a "Holy" mood.

[Teknav]

Why you folks are not having duck for dinner? What a waste of a valuable protein source!

Mauritz
Going to behave now!

[markpierce]

While not in the photo here, it isn't unusual to see one seagull posted on the bow and another on the radome while underway.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by boatman61

Hi active yeast mashed into soft bread and moulded into small balls and left on decks works well to... they cant fart... so they explode.. the feathers are easier to hose off

So that's what that noise was...

[svmariane]

To counter balance my previous post I give you:

Warning! Killer Seagulls

[Celestialsailor]

Oh crap!!!

[Roy M]

Here are a couple suggestions, using as examples a boat that I worked on last week. I use black quick-ties on the available roosts. The black lasts about five years in UV, and the birds scatter when they approach it.

[Hydra]

Originally Posted by Roy M

Here are a couple suggestions, using as examples a boat that I worked on last week. I use black quick-ties on the available roosts. The black lasts about five years in UV, and the birds scatter when they approach it.

Too bad this idea doesn't work for a masthead windvane. Two years ago, a crow landed on it while we were sailing. By luck, it was lighter than a seagull, or the vane would probably have been broken!

Alain

[Roy M]

I'm guessing you didn't notice that the first photo was the Windex arm with quickties, located below the Windex unit. There's an led cluster at the base of the Windex, activated by the masthead nav lights so that, under sail at night, you just have to look upward to check the wind. These things work really well and last a long time. I switched to them when I started doing sailboat radar installations. With powerboats I used Bird-B-Gone stainless wire arrays. I used cable loom to cover the Windex boom to protect the led wire cable from UV. The wire ties were to secure it, then I left the rest of the ties to befuddle the birds. Try it before condemning it.

[Hydra]

Roy, I'm sorry: I didn't write clearly enough. How do you prevent a bird to land on the Windex?

Alain

[JPA Cate]

The standing up cable tie ends make it look like a field of punji sticks to the birds.

With a little effort, the monofil works, too, like over the spreaders and the boom, but the sticky-up bits do better on perch areas that don't have something to tie the monofil up to.

[Roy M]

Black holds up better to UV than monofilament or white plastic.

Hydra, the Windex has a "bird spike" version, or you can get a VHF antenna version. On the support for the Windex, I installed a piece of black electrical loom, to protect the power cable for the led cluster under the Windex. Then, I secured the loom with the black tie wraps and left the tails long to shoo away any perchers.

[zeehag]

bubba kills em. good kitty.

[Bill Lee]

Although not cheap, but certainly cool and effective is a flying sock/kite of an American Bald Eagle I bought online at jackite.com (no financial interest -just a satisfied customer). Th eeagle actually flies and flaps its wings. However, the most effective solution is breaking the pattern. I find that after our 1st long trip of the season (3 weeks) the birds are used to our absence and find someone else/some place else to crap.
Cheers,
Bill