I moved a few months ago and because I’m in a relatively dense neighborhood I didn’t expect woodpecker issues like I had at my old house in the forest. How wrong I was. You can hear woodpeckers pecking at metal chimneys in the neighborhood all day long . I don’t think they’re looking for nesting spots. They’re either trying to get bugs to show themselves or to signal their territories.
One comes to my house every day. Well, I think it’s the same one, and I tried scaring it off with my pellet gun, but that only works for about an hour. Are there better ways to discourage a woodpecker from pecking on my chimney? I’m not worried about it causing damage, but the echo it makes inside the house is very distracting.
By the way, I have a tall roof line so the bird is 30+ feet in the air compared to me on the ground.
Generally, woodpeckers peck on wood to get at bugs to eat.
When woodpeckers peck on metal things, like satellite dishes or (in your case) metal chimneys that reverberate, it’s a male out to make the right kind of noise to attract a mate in the spring, which is where we are now.
I would think an easy deterrent would be to pad the chimney in question with cardboard, to deaden the sound, since that’s what they’re after.
Of course if you did it wrong, and the cardboard itself made a nice drumming surface, you might actually make it MORE attractive than the chimney had been before.
Ah hah… I knew sex was involved somehow . I suppose I could turn on the gas fireplace and see if that discourages him, or just keep shooting at him until either I hit him, or he gets the idea and leaves to bother somebody else. I have no problem with him pecking to attract a mate, but there are lots of other metal chimneys around where the owners have flown south for the winter so-to-speak. Suicide is not the answer.
Note that they are protected, which means big fines if you are caught.
Besides which - he will stop drumming after mating season, which ends pretty soon.
Yes, it is mating season and they are doing it to make noise to attract a mate. Have you seen what kind of bird is doing this? Flickers are notorious for this.
We have a flicker that has been coming to our house routinely for several weeks to bang on our chimney. Its loud, but doesn’t last long. Its pretty entertaining and we have become quite fond of the little guy. He also has a snack at our suet feeder periodically. For the life of me I don’t understand why you would want to harm it.
