How to get rid of birds ?

[Steve (sdh2903)]

I feel your pain. We are going through the annual divebombing swallow nesting rituals. Every bl**** year I try something new to get the beggars to sod off. They can just nest direct to the render on our house so no amount of deterrants work. They've just sneaked round the corner now and gone above the garage where I can't get them. 

The cars are peppered with poo every sodding day. Shotgun sounds the best option to me.....

[Steve (sdh2903)]

And don't get me started on the silly cow next door who is complaining about the seagulls redecorating her conservatory because she keeps throwing food out for them 

[Thrustyjust]

I live in the middle of a housing estate, so using gas bombs like farmers and birds in distress machines will feck a load of people off. We only had 3 on the car and one window by the time I got up this morning, so thats less to clean up than usual  Ironically one of the neighbours that feeds the birds said the other day , he was having issues with bird droppings .............. Then my cat brought a rat into the garage where we were and he said 'oh'............... educating pork doesnt happen............

I may get a couple of owls or falcons , but they look rubbish . I look forward to rain , as it washes the crap off the cars as it lands currently.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

We have these blighters and they don't half dump when nature calls...

...and occasionally 'Spike' as he is less than affectionately known by the goldfish - a.k.a. lunch!

 

[Thrustyjust]

Red kites are over here too, but they only go for carrion , so we always wait for the sparrow hawk. He shuts all the birds up , when he's on the prowl. 

[Blatman]

If I lived even remotely close to a countryside I'd have my own raptor, either a Harris Hawk or a European Eagle Owl. Maybe when I retire...

I happen to know that at Stamford Bridge they have a guy turn up a few times a week with a Harris Hawk to keep the other fowl at bay and it seems to work. They're a bit harder to keep than a kit or a plastic replica though. Oh the irony... 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

12 hours ago, Thrustyjust said:

Red kites are over here too, but they only go for carrion , so we always wait for the sparrow hawk. He shuts all the birds up , when he's on the prowl. 

The kites are pretty spineless, crows, magpies, and other birds harry them mercilessly and the kites seem not to want to fight back. If I catch a rodent in my shed I put its corpse on the wall (where the kite in the middle picture is) and within a very short time it's been whisked away by a kite but they have yet to take a squirrel than often runs along the same wall. I wouldn't think they deter other birds from messing up your paintwork; in fact they do it themselves. Probably a car port is best if you can have one but don't have cross members where birds can roost or the problem will get worse!

[Blatman]

13 hours ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

The kites are pretty spineless, crows, magpies, and other birds harry them mercilessly and the kites seem not to want to fight back.

Not just kites. I've seen crows mob Harris Hawks, Owls and small Eagles. I have been lucky enough to participate in pest control using raptors to hunt rabbits/hares etc and it's amazing how quickly the Corvids will descend upon a Raptor with a fresh kill   On at least two occasions it has required human intervention to stop the Corvids doing some real damage to the Raptor.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

There was a report in the local paper a couple of years ago of a kite seen taking a squirrel, but mainly they are reviled in the same journal for stealing children's picnic food from their hands and 'savaging' them in the process.  I find them fascinating in their flying skills. If we have a few scraps of, say, bacon rind or chicken skin we'll put them on the wall and watch the fun. Their computing speed when swooping down to pick up tiny morsels is prodigious, and occasionally one will drop its snack in flight and dive down to catch it before it's fallen more than a few metres. Someone locally has access to a butcher's scrap bin and they give the kites pigs' ears, snouts, bits of trotter, etc., and my neighbour's paddock often gets littered with rejected pig-parts dropped by fussy raptors. Daft, really, because the birds become dependent on such tit-bits and lose their foraging skills. The Red Kite web site neither condemns nor encourages feeding but makes the point about dependency.

[DonPeffers]

Think it's bad 'round your way?

 

[BigSkyBrad]

When I was in the Airforce in NZ, we had a problem with birds nesting in the rafters of the hangers at the base I was posted at, and pooing on the jet fighters. So at great expence, a huge taxidermied barn owl was purchased and shipped out from the UK and put up in the middle of the rafters as a deterrent. Well, all the NZ birds just sat next to it because they'd never seen, let alone been chased by, a UK barn owl before!

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Same goes for many New Zealanders with people from the rest of the world doesn't it? 

[BigSkyBrad]

@Man On The Clapham Omnibus Hey, there's a lot to be said for being an island nation at the bottom of the world! And if nothing else, we have the All Blacks!

[Blatman]

13 hours ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

There was a report in the local paper a couple of years ago of a kite seen taking a squirrel, but mainly they are reviled in the same journal for stealing children's picnic food from their hands and 'savaging' them in the process.  I find them fascinating in their flying skills. If we have a few scraps of, say, bacon rind or chicken skin we'll put them on the wall and watch the fun. Their computing speed when swooping down to pick up tiny morsels is prodigious, and occasionally one will drop its snack in flight and dive down to catch it before it's fallen more than a few metres. Someone locally has access to a butcher's scrap bin and they give the kites pigs' ears, snouts, bits of trotter, etc., and my neighbour's paddock often gets littered with rejected pig-parts dropped by fussy raptors. Daft, really, because the birds become dependent on such tit-bits and lose their foraging skills. The Red Kite web site neither condemns nor encourages feeding but makes the point about dependency.

I would ask you to stop putting out scraps for the Kites. One of the issues they face with living so close to humans is that they will take what scraps they see. However their natural carrion diet includes the bones/marrow/feathers etc of the prey they scavenge. Human leftovers usually don't contain these items and the bird miss out on the nutrients provided by them. Obviously cooked and processed food is a big no-no!

http://www.redkites.net/section72403_17684.html

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

BigSkyBrad, I have an old girlfriend who lives in Tasmania - that's pretty remote too from what she tells me. 'Old' is now sadly a reference to both the elapsed time since I last saw her, and to her chronological age.  Her formidable libido that I recall fondly when she was a teenager may have waned slightly...

Blatters, it's a very, very infrequent event that anything is given to kites by us. Only when a bit of raw skin comes to hand or the occasional glisglis that has 'accidentally' strayed into the (quite beefy electronic) mouse trap in the shed. My daughter frowns at the thought of those who buy food specifically for the birds and her frowns are to be avoided! I must say I hadn't heard mention of the 'roughage' aspect of the diet though. A fat glisglis might make up for that I suppose, but the cat's prey of voles and shrews will barely count.