SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Woodpecker problem
Page 1 2 3 
Go
New
Find
Notify
Tools
Reply
  
Woodpecker problem Login/Join 
Official forum
SIG Pro
enthusiast
Picture of stickman428
posted
A few times each week I am awoken by a BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP sound of a damn woodpecker banging his empty head on my house. The dumb bird bangs away on our metal gutters so the sound really resonates. I don't want to shoot the bird but I'd be lying if I said I haven't thought about blasting it with a modified high end full auto airsoft gun.

Will a fake owl scare it away? Anyone else had this problem? If so what worked for you?


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The price of liberty and even of common humanity is eternal vigilance
 
Posts: 21075 | Location: San Dimas CA, the Old Dominion or the Tar Heel State…flip a coin  | Registered: April 16, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
"Member"
Picture of cas
posted Hide Post
Probably not your problem but... I used to feed the birds a lot. Started putting out suet blocks, which drew lots of woodpeckers. Who made holes in my and all the neighbors houses. Oops. Stopped feeding them for a year and they're mostly gone.


I'm sure people will chime in and tell you that means you have bugs in your house, but that's BS. It doesn't have to mean anything other than that there's woodpeckers around.


_____________________________________________________
Sliced bread, the greatest thing since the 1911.

 
Posts: 21052 | Location: 18th & Fairfax  | Registered: May 17, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
A Grateful American
Picture of sigmonkey
posted Hide Post
Woody is protected, and the Red Cockaded and Ivory Billed are fully protected endangered chimney cap hammering birds.


We had one that loved up our chimney many years ago, and I put rubber snakes and plastic owls on the chimney, and Woody laughed and pecked all the harder.

BDDDDDDDDDink!!!!

BDDDDDDDDDink!!!!

BDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDink!!!!

Uncle Sam must have felt sorry for us and sent us to Okinawa, so we sold the house...

ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! ha-ha-ha-HA-ha! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-Ha!




"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב!
 
Posts: 43810 | Location: ...... I am thrice divorced, and I live in a van DOWN BY THE RIVER!!! (in Arkansas) | Registered: December 20, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Staring back
from the abyss
Picture of Gustofer
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by stickman428:
Will a fake owl scare it away?

No.

It used to crack me up that folks in NY would think that fake owls would solve their crow problem. Roughly 20,000 crows per flock and several flocks in and around Albany and all the while everyone was putting up owl decoys. A couple of guys with some 6-shot would have taken care of that problem in a day.

quote:
Anyone else had this problem? If so what worked for you?

I have. .22 worked like a charm.


________________________________________________________
"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil." Doug Patton.
 
Posts: 19975 | Location: Montana | Registered: November 01, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Don't Panic
Picture of joel9507
posted Hide Post
This might be worth a try. Sound-activated big toy spider designed to frighten them off.

Fast forward to the 1-minute mark.



Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWJQ_2DpEgM

We had a couple of these. We didn't have woodpeckers, though - they were for Halloween (door knocking sounds like woodpeckers, and activates them) They were great for putting around the door to impress trick-or-treaters.
 
Posts: 15001 | Location: North Carolina | Registered: October 15, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
Picture of Sig2340
posted Hide Post
Triple S.


Shoot


Shovel


Shut up



Or


Shoot
Saute
Serve





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31382 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Had a similar situation. Had a pecker setup a home in my wall after making a neat 1 1/2" hole and pulling out insulation that was in his/her way. Didn't want to kill them so I covered the hole with aluminum and put up a small bird house next to the hole. They left and went to the back of the house to start anew. Pissed me off so I "aluminized" and put up another small bird house. Never saw them again.

YMMV



I should be tall and rich too; That ain't gonna happen either
 
Posts: 358 | Location: NW NJ | Registered: December 07, 2015Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of cne32507
posted Hide Post
It's mating season and they hammer on whatever makes the loudest noise. Maybe he will quit after he gets some; maybe not.
 
Posts: 2520 | Location: High Sierra & Low Desert | Registered: February 03, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
stupid beyond
all belief
Picture of Deqlyn
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Gustofer:
quote:
Originally posted by stickman428:
Will a fake owl scare it away?

No.

It used to crack me up that folks in NY would think that fake owls would solve their crow problem. Roughly 20,000 crows per flock and several flocks in and around Albany and all the while everyone was putting up owl decoys. A couple of guys with some 6-shot would have taken care of that problem in a day.

quote:
Anyone else had this problem? If so what worked for you?

I have. .22 worked like a charm.


LOL! As someone who hunts crows we use an owl to attract them.... some dumb people.

To the OP my brother used a few of my crow decoys to stop bluejays from peckin at his house. They work but look like you have 24/7 halloween decorations. It also helped that they blow in the wind a bit.



What man is a man that does not make the world better. -Balian of Ibelin

Only boring people get bored. - Ruth Burke
 
Posts: 8227 | Registered: September 13, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of jbcummings
posted Hide Post
Fake owls do not work....



———-
Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for thou art crunchy and taste good with catsup.
 
Posts: 4306 | Location: DFW | Registered: May 21, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
Picture of HayesGreener
posted Hide Post
We used to have one that attacked the chimney cap at the crack of dawn. It echoed throughout the house and sounded like Rosie the Riveter up there. I always thought he was sharpening his beak, but the mating season thing makes sense to me now.


CMSGT USAF (Retired)
Chief of Police (Retired)
 
Posts: 4358 | Location: Florida Panhandle | Registered: September 27, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Official forum
SIG Pro
enthusiast
Picture of stickman428
posted Hide Post
I need to get the bird to leave. If it moves away from pecking on the gutters and starts pecking on the wood it's gonna be a royal pain to get up there to fix things.

The wood pecker enjoys pecking on this corner of the house. As you can see it's pretty high up.

The crow idea seems intetesting.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The price of liberty and even of common humanity is eternal vigilance
 
Posts: 21075 | Location: San Dimas CA, the Old Dominion or the Tar Heel State…flip a coin  | Registered: April 16, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
In the yahd, not too
fah from the cah
Picture of ryan81986
posted Hide Post
I have a ton of small holes in the trim of my house thanks to those little bastards. I'm going to have to replace all of the trim with PVC.




 
Posts: 6337 | Location: Just outside of Boston | Registered: March 28, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ethics, antics,
and ballistics
Picture of Dtech
posted Hide Post
We had a woodpecker a few weeks back that loved to go "full auto" on our neighbor's two story house gutter between 7:00 and 8:00am pretty regularly. Fortunately it is on the opposite side of where our bedrooms are and during the week we are already up by then as well. We actually had quite a few Woodpeckers flying around, yes here in our South Florida neighborhood. It's funny when you see people mention nuisance critters of one kind or another and how often they are supposedly classified as protected or endangered. If anything their populations have continued to grow to alarmingly common levels.

Did I mention that Woodpeckers have a strong taste for ripe mangos? Year after year I have gone out to our trees to pick a nice ripe mango off the tree before it drops to the ground only to find a 1" hole all the way down to seed on the other side of the mango. You have to be really vigilant to make sure you are getting to the mangos before they do and pick them several at a time as they get ripe. If they fall on the ground, the ducks will eat them too and leave only a completely dry seed. Recently though the Woodpeckers have been MIA which I suspect may be because we always have a number of Blue Jays around that may have finally driven them off. They seem almost as territorial as Mockingbirds. The Jays mostly just eat the bugs off the trees and the yard so they are welcome and nice to have around. Only on the rare occasion have they gotten into a mango. The Jays also don't have the taunting and somewhat annoying Woody Woodpecker "laugh". Wink


-Dtech
__________________________

"I've got a life to live, people to love, and a God to serve!" - sigmonkey

"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value." - Albert Einstein

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition" ― Rudyard Kipling
 
Posts: 4413 | Location: Central Florida | Registered: April 03, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
The only problem that I've had has been Northern Flickers that will hit my chimney cap in the spring. They will "drum" to attract a mate, and the metal makes a better noise than just plain wood. I also have Hairy Woodpeckers and Pileated Woodpeckers around, but they never try to get through the siding or trim on the house.....I have several dead trees and stumps in the woods near the house that makes for a much better nest.

Edit: Here's one of the Pileated Woodpeckers banging away on a stump. The tree fell years ago (snapped off about 15 feet above ground).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Sgt Neutron,
 
Posts: 1474 | Location: Washington | Registered: August 30, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Rule #1: Use enough gun
Picture of Bigboreshooter
posted Hide Post
I had that problem several years ago, but with a pair of woodys. It went on for several days, until my 10/22 ended one of them's activities. The other one left, never to be heard from again.



When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are undisturbed. Luke 11:21


"Every nation in every region now has a decision to make.
Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." -- George W. Bush

 
Posts: 14826 | Location: Birmingham, Alabama | Registered: February 25, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
member
Picture of henryaz
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Bigboreshooter:
I had that problem several years ago, but with a pair of woodys. It went on for several days, until my 10/22 ended one of them's activities. The other one left, never to be heard from again.

We don't have gutters, but the fools like to get on top of my TV antenna and bang away. Since the mast is secured to the garage wall, it resonates in the garage. I just step out and run them off. Seems to work for a few days, and then I hear them on the neighbors' tin roofs of their horse "mare motels".
 
 
Posts: 10778 | Location: South Congress AZ | Registered: May 27, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Political Cynic
Picture of nhtagmember
posted Hide Post
every morning between 5 and 515 I get Woody and his entourage beating away on my house

they go after my satellite dish, eaves troughing, canopy...anything that makes a noise

out of all the birds I like to see and hear, the woodpecker is NOT one of them

if I could make them ALL go away I would



[B] Against ALL enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC


 
Posts: 53086 | Location: Tucson Arizona | Registered: January 16, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
quote:
A few times each week I am awoken by a BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP sound


I'm pretty sure that is the same sound the A-10 makes with it's gun. That is the sound of freedom. Why do you hate freedom? Razz


------------------------------
I'm a right wing, anti-illegal, pro-life, gun owning, straight, white, college educated, politically informed, conservative, Christian male. Liberals hate me.
 
Posts: 2901 | Location: RDU, NC | Registered: March 07, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
I also have Pileated Woodpeckers. The giant economy sized pecker. Wake me up regularly. I have an animal skull hanging on my patio and a small woodpecker will occasionally tap on it!


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
 
Posts: 16005 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
  Powered by Social Strata Page 1 2 3  
 

SIGforum.com    Main Page  Hop To Forum Categories  The Lounge    Woodpecker problem

© SIGforum 2024