[C320-list] Bird Problem

[DAVE Swanson]

Tim,

Several things I have seen for bird control here in the PNW:

1.  I have seen people string shiny, slightly twisted, reflecting mylar ribbons across their waterfront home yards and docks to keep Canadian Geese and other migratory birds from roosting on their lawns and trashing their yards.  When observed from afar, the twisted mylar ribbon reflects the light in a way to look like it is moving laterally along the ribbon.  Seems pretty effective on the waterfront homes to keep geese and docks off of lawns.  We have a small lake cabin north of Seattle and this tactic seems to work there and on some of the homes around the saltwater.  An inexpensive solution.

2.  A large 60 sailboat near our C320 in Edmonds Marina has these green ultrasonic speakers (www.birdgard.com) mounted on his lifeline stanchions (temporarily zip tied while his boat is moored) blasting a very high frequency noise to keep the birds off of his boat.  They are so effective that the gulls and seabirds don't even roost on the rock breakwater that is adjacent to where he keeps his boat.  By comparison, the rock breakwater on the other side of the marina entrance to where this 60 foot sailboat is moored is always filled with gulls an seabirds and the accompanying bird screeching and guano.  We are fortunate to be close to this "bird repellant speakered" 60’ sailboat.  If he ever moves, I will likely get these same speakers if I start to have a problem with seabirds roosting on our boat.  See https://www.birdgard.com/product/Bird-Gard-Pro

3.  Plastic owls and rubber snakes.  Not sure if these work, but I do see lots of them around our marinas and waterfront homes.  When I was little, my grandmother would use rubber snakes to keep the birds off of her vegetable gardens.  She swore by them.  

4.  I had this similar trouble when we used to keep our boat in San Diego a couple of years ago.  We were the tallest mast in the specific area of our marina and consequent the birds would roost on our windex and spreaders.    They broke a few Windex's too!  In the springtime, the birds would eat berries and it would stain our deck.  We lucked out in that the deck stains would disappear from the sun bleaching the berry stains after we cleaned off the deck and several other sailboats with taller masts started mooring next to ours.  The problem went away after that.

Anyway, hopefully this information is helpful to you.  

I feel your pain...

Dave

David Swanson
S/V Emily Ann
2007 C320 MK II, No 1107
Mukilteo, WA and San Diego, CA





> On Jan 1, 2015, at 12:27 PM, Timothy Osburn <tosburn1958 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I have a major bird problem on my boat.  The last two weekends, I had to
> haul buckets of water on deck ( because the marina water is turned off for
> the winter ) and scrub the decks to get the bird guano off. We're not
> talking about one or two unsightly little messes here.  We're talking about
> my boat looking like the Galapagos Islands.  Apparently, every migratory
> bird in North America on their way to their Florida condo's has stopped in
> and left the calling card on my decks.
> 
> Last weekend, I bought one of those stupid plastic owls and strung it up
> with the main halyard and tied it off so it was in the middle of the
> mainsail triangle area.  It made no difference and in fact, the boat looked
> worse this weekend then last weekend.
> 
> Short of opening up a guano factory and selling the stuff on eBay, does
> anyone have any ideas getting rid of these damn things?  Thanks.
> 
> BTW - the boat is on Kent Island in the the Chesapeake.