Bird control methods

[Steadman Uhlich]

Perhaps the folks putting plastic owls and rubber snakes on their boats are using the wrong kind of animal.

[savoir]

The supermarket chicken thing might just work. If the birds come round this summer I'll try it. For reasons I cannot explain birds poop all over some boats and totally ignore others so I don't get them every year.

[El Pinguino]

Be thankful you don't have turkey vultures to deal with in Tasmania....

Apart from destroying everything at the mast head the buggers - when sitting on the spreaders- would just glare at you if you tried the old 'dislodge them with a good halyard flogging' trick... then turn their back on you and take a dump.
The mast ended up like a well greased pole in a fire station....

[Duct Tape]

I think I would rather clean bird s..t off my boat than have dead and rotting birds in the rigging...

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Be thankful you don't have turkey vultures to deal with in Tasmania....

Apart from destroying everything at the mast head the buggers - when sitting on the spreaders- would just glare at you if you tried the old 'dislodge them with a good halyard flogging' trick... then turn their back on you and take a dump.
The mast ended up like a well greased pole in a fire station....

We have those things where I cave dive (Mariana FL) among other things, they will tear the cushions and upholstery out of the pontoon boats there. I don't know what draws them there, joke is of course dead cave divers.
Actually I think ours are Turkey Buzzards, what I guess is sort of a smaller version of what you have?

As a low level pilot I hate the things, and have a few stories about them

[Rustic Charm]

Originally Posted by Duct Tape

I think I would rather clean bird s..t off my boat than have dead and rotting birds in the rigging...

I don't think you quite grasp the problem. On a mooring, as apposed to living in a boat, bird **** can eat away paint work, rot wood, delaminate fibreglass, and I'd aloud to go to far can block cockpit drains and even sink boats.

And you don't need a 'rotting' bird, just a dead one.

[s/v Beth]

I am late to this thread, but I think I have found something as effective as a dead bird- we put this up the mast:
http://www.amazon.com/Bird-X-SE-PAC-.../dp/B000QUWTS0
You can get three for under 10 usd if you shop around. Fully inflated they only last a season or so, but we have a under inflated in our back yard, it has been there for 3 years not and still going strong. No birds will come close.
We have also tied Aluminum pie tins with a bright ribbon up, they seem to work as well although they are constantly a little noisy.

[rwidman]

I tried some metallic reflecting tape marketed as a bird repellant. I was not impressed. It made noise and the wind finally destroyed it. My marina tried the inflatable snakes and the plastic owls. The birds perched on the owls and hopped over the snakes. They tried the fishing line but pelicans kept hitting it when trying to take off or land. And it did nothing to keep the birds off the boats. I've never tried a dead bird and I'm not sure I want to. A chicken from the supermarket? I can just see the marina folks now walking down the dock and seeing a rotting dead chicken hoisted on my flybridge!


The problem with fighting birds is, there are many more of them than you and there is an endless supply of them.

[a64pilot]

This is the only thing I've seen that really works, but I doubt it would go over very well in a marina

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_YPpcCQZGY

[JPA Cate]

You know, I bet the dead bird trick will work, and the local birds will stay away till younger ones come along and then you might have to get another one.

I hadn't known that birds (at least one pelican could) could recognize individual boats, but in the Sea of Cortez, a motor boater friend of ours rescued a pelican that had a fish hook embedded just under its eye and fed it back to health. For years afterward, when he rejoined his boat, this bird would come by for a visit and a feed. So at least that bird could recognize that boat. What Rustic Charm describes of his experience, makes me think the same kind of recognition takes place here, among these birds.

I wonder if they understand that the feathers of the feather duster are dead bird parts!?

Ann

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Actually I think ours are Turkey Buzzards, what I guess is sort of a smaller version of what you have?....

I think its the same bird, different regional name.
The ones on the edge of the Atacama live entirely on garbage dumps and in an area with no trees the few yacht masts are prime real estate.

[captain58sailin]

I can attest to the efficacy of the dead seagulls.

[onestepcsy37]

I strung CD's from the main halyard, hoisted to the masthead. Maybe 20 of them in a 40ft length. The bright shiny surfaces sparkle and apparently scare them off. I went from being the local avian toilet to the cleanest boat in the anchorage.

[Saleen411]

A chicken from the supermarket? I can just see the marina folks now walking down the dock and seeing a rotting dead chicken hoisted on my flybridge!

I was thinking along the lines of a FEATHERED chicken from a local farm....the prettier the better to make the rigging look nice. Don't know if gutting the thing first would be a good idea as decomposing bird innards will smell and the drippings would FOWL the deck.

[Seymore]

Originally Posted by Ann T. Cate

Does the species of the dead bird have to match the species of the ones you want to deter?

No, any whole dead bird will do, preferably still with feathers. I have seen a dead sparrow keep everything away.