No, not custard and ice cream, but birds that come to excavate a brick wall. I have had an e mail from a friend who is having problems with birds that are attacking his house wall. He said they were sparrows, but to my eyes they are black with a white chest and a flash line of white similar to that a sparrow has on its shoulder/wing. What they are doing is pecking at the brick work and eroding it.
Anyone got any ideas?
Dave
He could try putting a silhouette of a hawk on the wall to scare them off.
Don.
Could do but it won't work. I tried it. I even tried a 3D sparrow hawk model. Most garden birds don't know what the threat is and perch right next to it. btw I was trying to get rid of the filthy pigeons that overfeed because of stupid bag next door who puts out continuous feeders. Also won't work are things like ultrasonic bird scarers (unless you can try 1kW of 20kHz (which I can't). Birds meay *seem* to do clever things and some sing wonderfully, like blackbirds (really beautiful), but they are the most stupid of creatures imaginable. In the case of pigeons - also the most filthy. Old bag next door quietly ignores their cra* as she wades to fill the feeders each week. She is the same fruitcake that won't have her 70' (yes SEVENTY foot) ash tree pruned and has just replaced her smashing quiet sheepdog with a terrier that barks at small children, OAP's, it's shadow, a passing cloud, it's own fa*ts - in fact, at nothing at all. The fact this noise is very loud but does not last very long seems to exempt attempts to prevention of noise nuisance because it's doesn't go on for long enough. Great fun being waken up at 07:00 when working afternoons and nights. Very sorry so OT. I've had this for years....
What's wrong with a 70 foot tree?
Nothing as long as it's a very long way from any houses. It has a root spread at least as much as its height.
Pruning won't reduce that spread.
They sound like House Martins who can build nests under the eaves of houses out of mud. If they are doing this they are quite nice really and you are quite lucky as the prefer non-urban environments
I thought that pruning does stop the roots growing.
The tree tries to balance roots and branches so if a lot of branches are pruned off it will put all its effort into growing above ground.
Am i right or wrong?
(pruning also reduces the shade / shadows !)
[g]
But pruning branches doesn't shrink its existing root spread - even if were not to grows any more roots at all.
But it does alter its water usage and may cause ground shift where the roots are.
Absolutely. But I couldn't decide whether the overall effect would be to increase or decrease water uptake - so I made no comment on that. Whichever it does (or even if it does not change the actual amount one jot), the root spread will not be reduced by pruning branches.
However it DRASTICALLY reduces the water uptake, which in many cases is what affects the subsidence.
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