We had a moickingbird nest in our patio rafters. The wife is a huge birder freak so we had to let them be. It was pretty cool to watch them build it, and the two babies were certainly cute. But now that they’ve fledged, OMG, I want a BB gun. They. Won’t. Shut. Up! Even at like 3 am! They aren’t in the patio rafters any more, but the pair of them are always in the yard yap yap yapping away…
Pleases don’t kill them! Buy some very loud wind chimes and hang them on your deck . You could buy a big rubber snake and put it where the nest going to be build .
I put up with a little extra mess during breeding season. If you have company most folks will understand if they don’t, oh well.
I wonder if a rubber snake or two would work in my cherry tree to keep the birds from eating my cherries… Last year, the damned birds ate Every. Single. Cherry. This year the tree is full of ripening cherries again and I’d rather the birds not eat them. Guess I could go to the Dollar Tree and invest a couple of bucks in rubber snakes. I have old CD’s hanging in there now, but a couple of snakes couldn’t hurt, eh?
Vultures are kind of easy, but a bit annoying when they start following you around like feathered puppies puppies though.
Strange thing though, they apparently hold meaningful conversations with chickens
They are all animals, and just doing their jobs ordained by Mr. Darwin.
it’s worth a try ! I heard of people using rubber snakes to keep birds away. You might want to move the snakes around so the birds don’t get use to them . A fake hawk would help too. CRAP ! I would BS too if all my cherries were eaten . Buy some real big loud wind chimes too, go all the way . Good luck !
I’ve found the fake plastic Owls and such work for about 2 days.
Oh the irony when I looked out one day and saw birds perched on their heads!
Hence my overly harsh previous post in this thread. Yeah, don’t kill Robins. Pigeons? Fuck yeah.
I have a spinner balloon; gonna hang it out there in the morning & see if that works.
Wind chimes won’t work. Rubber snake - might have one of those…somewhere.
But they got such cute widdle faces.
The pinner balloon might be a bit of deterrence because it’s moving, but the “scare Eyes” and “Terror-Eyes” balloons are thought to be effective in large part because of the effect of those startling eyes. In one of those models, the eyes are either holographic or use lenticular arrays so that they actually appear to move.
the idea of such eye-Scare scarecrows goes back to ancient Greece and Rome, I have argued both in my book Medusa and in my later article to Classical Review. See also on my website here: Medusa Extra — Oscilla etc. – The Writings of Stephen R. Wilk
As I understand it any attempt to move their nest is a felony so you may just have to deal.
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Not sure about that, but haven’t read up on it lately. Unlikely nest building would be prohibited, tho ISTR destruction of an active nest with eggs/young might. (Seem to recall it is essentially open game on house sparrows, tho. Sucks to be them!) And, of course, there is the issue of whether it would be detected/prosecuted.
We have a robin that tries to build a nest on an elbow of our downspout every year. I just knock it down a couple of times, and they build it in any of the countless other available sites. I’m able to get to it before eggs are laid because it is on the wall outside our bedroom, and they are surprisingly loud in their efforts. Call me a house snob, but I’d just as soon not have a smear of mud and birdshit down a prominent wall of my house.
I have a friend whose dog gets along pretty well with his rooster. But when the chicken hawk shows up, all hell breaks loose.
Another vote for staying on top of it. Robins, at my house, always set up in the same spot. Even when I attempt to put a bunch of stuff in that area to block access, they just build around it. What I can do, is check each day and remove the building materials. I usually just put on a glove, pull it all out and toss it on the ground). After about a week or two they set up shop somewhere else, usually 20 or 30 feet away.
Honestly, I wouldn’t mind except it’s on a porch light and I don’t like that they crap all over the (aluminum) siding and I worry they’ll fly into the house as they spooked every time I walk out the door.
Evictions are usually handled at the county level. You should go on your county’s website and see if they have a handbook on landlord/tenant law.
Cite? As far as I can see, violations of the Migratory Bird Act are misdemeanors. Also, in reading the act, I see no prohibition on destroying nests as such.
I can sympathize with the OP. My wife, who loves hanging baskets of flowers, fights a continual battle with a host of LBB’s (Little Brown Birds) who just love building their nests in hanging baskets. This wouldn’t be so bad (and is actually a lot of fun to watch the feathered families grow up), but does cause lots of problems with watering the plants. You don’t want to drown a nest of cute babies.
She has finally hit on a partial solution - getting some fine cheesecloth and wrapping the whole basket in that. It helps a bit, but you would be amazed at the ingenuity of these “Bird brained” beasties. If there is a way in, they will find it. I had no idea that birds were so stubborn regarding their living accommodations. I try to be supportive, but it sure is funny to watch her fly out of the patio doors and try to chase away the transgressors.
I had a sparrow nest on my deck and I called to see if I could move it . I was told if it was barn sparrows I couldn’t touch it but I could if was house sparrows. I wasn’t sure what kind they were so I let the birds live on my deck for 4 years . Some starling took over the nest and were making a huge mess on my deck so I had the nest removed and the space blocked off. Starlings are invasive birds so it was OK to remove the nest . The OP could see if OK to remove the nest before there are eggs in it . The nest I had removed had no eggs in it yet.