Woodpeckers?

[Mark & Juanita]

My shop has become a target for woodpeckers and I'm fighting having them burrowing holes in the siding. This isn't just a small inconvenience, it is becoming a major damage issue. Has anybody found something (besides shooting them -- not wanting to try that method to start) to get rid of them. My folks found the following: but it's mighty spendy. I suppose I could try real electrical fencing to accomplish the same thing by running the hot and a ground wire in close proximity.

Any experience or ideas would be welcome.

[Doug Winterburn]

If you patch, they seem to want to go back to the same spot to peck. I had them go through a gable end of cedar siding. I stapled 1/8" hardware cloth on the inside and plastered the holes with Rock Hard. They almost broke their peckers trying to get through that. Also, someone must have shot one with an air rifle, and the rest left. Tis was in Washington State.

I had another that woke me up every morning pecking on the top of a metal tennis court light in Arizona. A Harris Hawk showed up one day, and the pecker was gone...

[Tom Kendrick]

[Mark & Juanita]

Thanks Doug, I'll give that a try for the repairs. Don't think I can make arrangements to schedule a hawk, so I'll have to try something else to get them to move on.

[Mark & Juanita]

Tom,

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll try that on the part of the shop where they are attacking under the gable.

[Lee Michaels]

"Mark & Juanita" wrote

Maybe if you get some big wings, wave them about and make threatening chirping noises...

[Lee Michaels]

Now that I think about it, I was talking to a tree removal expert (urban logger). He said that woodpeckers just love dead trees. He often leaves a trunk and a couple branches jusr for the woodpeckers. He has even brought a dead tree to another location and mounted it on a solid platform, just for the birds. I don't know if they will leave your garage for a dead tree though. But it is an interesting idea.

[Kerry Montgomery]

I had a problem with a flicker, and this worked:

cheap, nor is anything that this company sells, and may not be any more effective than the CD idea. They do sell a lot of other options, too. Here in OR, it's illegal to shoot flickers or woodpeckers. Best of luck, Kerry

[J. Clarke]

Eee-erp? Or was that before your time?

[Axel Grease]

Woodpeckers don't peck for no reason. They come back to places where tasty bugs live. Have you sprayed the siding with insecticide?

otherwise - Have you tried rubber toy snakes and/or owl decoys? Fake owls need a movable head or even motorized wings. Stationary ones get ignored eventually. Yellow glass eyes help. Farm supply stores often carry them. Also -

places also sell hawk decoys.

Axel

[Gerald Ross]

I think it is also for a mating call or something. When I was young we had one rat-a-tatting on our tin roof for days . Nothing tasty there.

[salty]

Heed the noisy warning. Woodpeckers have detected insect activity behind that siding. It's not the woodpeckers you need to worry about. When you fix the real problem, they will go elsewhere to find food.

[Han]

Mark & Juanita wrote in news:-JOdnRBhWLDnXvfUnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

As mentioned, the pecking is eiher to find food or to demonstrate that he is/has the biggest pecker around. Sort of like the 18-year old cruising around town in his convertible with the bass turned up WAY high ...

I don't know whether a recording of a woodpecker pecking would chase him away, but that may make the problem worse too.

[Keith nuttle]

You did not say if there is one or several holes. I solved my woodpecker problem as follows

I went into the antic one day and saw a big bird in a hole in the end of the antic. I tried to cover it with metal, and the birds made another hole below it. I though of all sorts of solutions; I liked the guillotine idea but my wife said NO.

I was out in the garage and saw the cat cage. It was made of wire mesh and the end opened to put the cat in. I took the cage into the antic and placed it so both holes were in the opening of the cat cage. Thinking that would only keep them from the antic, I then added a cookie sheet with about a quarter inch of motor oil in it. To complete the solution, I added mothballs to the oil.

The woodpeckers never returned, but I did have a problem explaining it to the painters when I had the house painted.

[C & E]

They aren't necessarily *finding* bugs. They are searching for bugs as they tap likely place which sound like there may be bugs there. (symantics) For instance, My T1-11 siding is perforated everywhere there is a void in the plywood. Not a flame, Axel. Just a note from my particular experience. Why they keep returning to certain places is a mystery to me.

[Walter]

Have a look at:

University has a lot of information about birds of all kinds.

Walter.

Keith nuttle wrote:

[tom]

You're absolutely right. They'll find the voids in the plywood siding and tap away, bugs or no bugs. Tom

[mac davis]

Find a log full of bugs and put it near your neighbor's house?

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

[-MIKE-]

About the same sized brains, as well.

[Upscale]

You're bad!

Got some neighbours that you don't get along with Mac?