D*** Woodpeckers

[wandaful]

Hi all.....haven't posted for ages. Now I have a question. Does anyone else have a problem with woodpeckers hitting their windows? I don't mean by accident, they fly at them over and over and over......for hours sometimes. ANyone know why or what to do about it, short of shooting the darn birds?

[Nascar8Fan]

We have ALOT of them around our house. We found this foil-looking strip (comes on a roll and you can get it at True Value) that we tack up to our eves when they get really out of control. That deters them from coming around that area due to the shiny tape moving in the wind.

[Dodgergirl]

My brother lives in Big Bear & had major problems with woodpeckers. He first used his .22, but that wasn't too eco friendly, now he hangs CD's on fishing line around his eaves & the woodpeckers have stayed away.

[wandaful]

Ok, we tried those solutions, to no avail. Thanks for the suggestions, though.
I think the problem may have just solved itself though. Ron just brought a dead woodpecker in that looked like it broke it's neck. The bird was flinging itself against our windows, and has been for a couple of months. Not sure if it was only this one or not, but we'll see. It was waking us up in the mornings, hitting the bedroom window.

[Mr. Man]

The wood peckers peck at various places on my house so much, I tell everyone to ring my doorbell, or I just won't answer my door. I am so used to the knocking sound, I just ignore it. I had a quail fly right into one of my windows and break through the first pane of a dual pane window during one of the rain storms. Scared the crap outta me, when that happened.

[CatdaBrat]

The woodpeckers, this time of year, see their reflections in the windows and think it's a rival, so they attack. I have had them fly into my car windows, too. Crows will also sometimes do this. There used to be one at Radio Shack a few years ago that attacked the plate glass windows over and over and sometimes even chased customers!

Some people put things in their windows, such as cut-outs of scary animal faces, but I dunno if it helps. Kinda reminds me of a favorite Gary Larson cartoon, in which somebody was covering a bird cage with a blanket, saying something like, "Time for your favorite animal blanket, Leroy!" And the blanket had images of predators such as alligators, lions, etc.!

[wandaful]

Well, that must have been the problem, because he solved it himself, poor guy. It was very quiet this morning without him.
Now onto the ground squirrel dilema. I think we have probably lost half of our circular drive to them....we have a regular underground river flowing in their tunnels and aren't quite sure how to fix it so it doesn't keep sinking. It's all worth it for the privilege of living here, though. What a beautiful winter.

[John @ 3300ft.]

Originally posted by wandaful:
Now onto the ground squirrel dilema. I think we have probably lost half of our circular drive to them....we have a regular underground river flowing in their tunnels and aren't quite sure how to fix it so it doesn't keep sinking.
Try to divert the undergound flow upstream somewhere before it gets to your drive. Find a trenching service/someone with a backhoe.

[monkey]

We've lost alot of our yard also to gophers & ground squirrels. I've heard that barn owls are a great way to get rid of them, so I'm gonna find someone to make me some barn owl houses and try that. I'll let you know if it works at all.