Sailnet
Tayana List
Ok everyone, I need your help; this is a biggie. We have been crapped upon and crapped upon by blackbird flocks (starlings and grackles) since early November. They eat Palmetto tree fruits (we are the Palmetto State) and then roost in my rigging and poop out the worst stuff you have ever seen. Rather than working on something constructive on the boat, I'm spending all my time scrubbing bird feces off. SMILES is beginning to look like a national monument. I've tried everything. First (for $30.00) I bought and osprey kite and mounted it in my rigging...no luck, the blackbirds just laughed at it and it flew away in the first storm. Next I tried (for $1.49 apiece) beach balls... the boat began to look like a circus with beach balls tied everywhere in the rigging. But when the balls began to be covered with bird poop I realized they weren't the answer. So next I tried aluminum tinsel-like Christmas-tree decorations ($16.95 worth)... again, no success. Then bright red polypropylene streamers....limited success - at least they don't poop on the streamers, they prefer the boat. Owls don't work, rubber snakes don't work, aluminum pie tins don't work. Can anyone help?
Jim Smiley T37 SMILES Charleston,
SC January 2002
Jim,
My
brother-in-law had a similar problem at his house. He got a tape of birds in
distress and played it for a weekend. The blackbirds have not been back to his
house on their migration for the last ten years. He is not the person to save
things, so I'm sure he does not still have the tape. Seems he got it from a wildlife group. Sorry, not much help on where to get the
tape.
Joe Sprouse T-37 Sojourn January
2002
Jim,
Good thought. Try the Cornell
Lab for Ornithology, in Ithaca. You may have to search the web for the address,
and I can't remember the name of the Lab, though I have a vague recollection
that it is called the Allen lab. If you have a copy of Audubon, they usually
have an ad soliciting donations and listing courses for bird lovers. The
director of the lab is Charlie Wolcott. He would find the problem amusing. Very bright man who did some of the seminal work on bird migration.
He is a pilot who uses a small plane to track migration, and worries about
birds interfering with flight. Some slight similarities to your problem.
For another
possible approach to the problem. It does no good to run a bare
electrical wire on the spreaders, as they would normally only perch on a single
wire. But if you run two small wires close to each other, and run a low AC
voltage across them, if their toes touch across the two wires, they would get a
slight shock. That would help deter them. Problem is that they have really
thick calluses on their toes, and if they have various crud
as well, it would act as an insulator. Talk with the people in your Psychology
department. There may be a few old fashioned Operant Conditioners who work with
pigeon, and they may be able to tell you about aversive stimuli using
electrical grids. These don't harm the birds (heaven forbid, despite your spending
days cleaning up their crap), and would not be likely to bring down the wrath
of some local Animal Rights Group.
Harvey J. Karten January 2002
__________________________________________________________________________________
Shotgun and five boxes of #9 ball ammo.
Great news !!!!!
all the nylon microfiliment
that I tied 1" above my spreaders (tied from stay to mast and is 1"
above the spreader - like a trip wire) actually worked and now the starlings
have moved to SC. Some of my dockmates also used Vaseline on the upper stays but where
it cannot touch the sails. Don’t fix the
problem.... or maybe they'll return to the Chesapeake.
Now if I could only get the great
blue herons from using my Windex as a merry-go-round.
Rich Hampel January 2002
__________________________________________________________________________________
We had a Hinckley 50 on our dock that had
one of the so-called distress tapes.... played on a loud hailer mounted on his
mizzen mast and timed to go off every 5 minutes for 24hrs a day. Yes definitely
the starlings left in fear, but every other species of flying creature actually
came and tried to help the bird in distress that was calling from inside that
thing on the mast. .... Ducks, terns, gulls, herons,
chickadees, sparrows, cormorants, swallows ...... all over the boat - pooping
spontaneously all over the place to lighten their bodyweight just in case the
cause of all that distress appeared.
Not a starling was to be seen !!!!! The
Hinckley finally left for berthing at another marina... because of bird poop,
the dents in his mast from missiles thrown while still full of beer, the globs
of duct tape wadded and covertly applied to the loud hailer, etc.
Rich Hampel January 2002
__________________________________________________________________________________