How do I stop swallows from nesting

[Rick Hughes]

I built myself a nice new boat shed ... specifically so my boat would be under cover & kept clean & dry. This is a 'gallows post & beam' construction so open to front and one side (desirable for airflow)

This year a pair of swallows arrived .... and my boat & everything in the boat house is covered with bird crap .... I mean serious piles of it on top of all horizontal surface .... I had to staple temporary plastic sheeting on underside of trusses where the boat goes ... to minimize the crap ........... the sheet is now covered with it.

The little sods (and there are now 2 offspring with them) also take to perching on any part of the boat and crapping on it.

I am an animal & nature lover, but cannot put up with this next year ......... my wife has also lost patience, and today asked me to go shoot them they are making so much mess, all over the new drive and the cars as well.

I know they are supposed to have migrated in August ... seems message has not got to them, we are being dived bombed, and high speed fly-past's by the things whenever we are near.

Once they go I'll remove the nest and as much crap as I can ... but I need to stop them coming back .... any suggestions.

Best I have found via Google is to have a model owl ... near entrance, supposed to keep them away.

(Maybe I should tie our cat to a rafter .... it serves no purpose in life, and just costs money to feed. )

[ARWadsworth]

Dunno. But I have a couple of swifts that I would like to stop nesting on a certain house.

Well yes, that's old news.

[SS]

> --

Maybe some netting hanging down along the open ends,suspend it from poles so it just slides back when access required.

[Nick]

Please take a breath and a step backward. Try to realise how remarkable these little creatures are. For, little creatures is what they are. Living, alive and you have them living with you. I'm not a twitcher but have lived with swifts, swallows and martins all my life. Yes, they do crap on whatever is beneath. So do I, you and HM the Q.

You can cover your boat and it will be clean but only whilst you have that boat. You will change your boat. Consider yourself blessed that these little rascals have chosen to live with you. This time of year they will have probably scarpered anyway. I think there is no finer sight than watching the youngsters earning and getting theit wings. Wonderful sight late of a summers day. Preparing for a very long journey. Saddest thing for me is the sight of hatchlings that have fallen from the nest Always saddens me. Always.

Cherish them, or get a shotgun. If you already have one, use it. It appears from your post that you don't much care for wildlife.

Is this a diy matter.

N

[Halmyre]

You're both lucky buggers - send them over here - I'd love to see swallows flitting about in the dusk. But I appreciate that in the wrong place they are a pest.

-- Halmyre

[Mike Barnes]

Rick Hughes :

We must have at least a dozen swallows in our stables. The mess and the smell are a bit unpleasant but I love seeing them flying around so I put up with it. But I can see how others might not want to.

Knocking the nests off will do no good because they'll have made a new one before you know it.

I'm guessing that you have a pitched roof and they're nesting under it. I'd try putting a horizontal net across at eaves level, before they come back next spring. Make sure you don't leave any gaps of more than a couple of cm.

[Peter Parry]

Contact

who will tell you of a number of ways of both keeping the swifts and protecting the house.

[Peter Crosland]

You might take a look here to see what you can and can't do within the law.

Crosland

[ARWadsworth]

If I could just get them to move to the left a bit so that they did not shit on you as you went through the door I would be happy:-)

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Good advice.

Wildlife is fine in its place, on a plate.

Pulling the trigger is always diy.

[Steve Walker]

While I am generally in favour of protecting birds. I think that it is wrong that where birds are causing a problem (for instance my parents had a nest directly above their front door and as well as the mess getting into the house, it was treacherously slippery on the step), that the occupier must "make an application", "show that other alternatives have been considered" and organise for an "authorised person" all at their cost, simply to get rid of an obvious hazard that is not of their making.

SteveW

[Steve Firth]

"Rick Hughes" wrote: [snip]

Possibly the best that you can do is to catch the birds, skewer them and cook them over charcoal. Mind you I like swallows so I would leave them alone.

It's a dilemma that women are familiar with. Spit or swallow?

[Peter Parry]

It usually isn't that difficult to persuade the birds to move a bit to the left (or right) and so maintain both a clear path and a nest for a bird which is in decline. Imagination is surely the one element which puts the best DIYer above the plodding apparachnik and something we should use to best effect.

[Rick Hughes]

You're both lucky buggers - send them over here - I'd love to see swallows flitting about in the dusk. But I appreciate that in the wrong place they are a pest.

I agree the 4 of them are very acrobatic, ... it's just they crap so much my nice new outbuilding is now a filthy health hazard.

[Rick Hughes]

Yes this is a diy matter .... I want to do something myself that will stop the sods returning. I appreciate your points above, and I have foxes, rabbits, frogs all visit my garden on regular basis ... and I'm happy to leave them alone.

For me this is a £30k boat & building investment... that is being seriously covered in crap by some wild birds .. that I do not want. I don't want to cover boat ... this was whole point in spending several thousand building my boat store .... so that I could leave covers off it, otherwise you trap in damp air and things go mouldy.

I don't want to kill the birds, although I have considered shooting them - after having to wash boat down before use ! I will let them be until they move off, but I sure as hell want to stop them coming back.

They are still there ... all 4 of them crapping everywhere today as normal .... maybe I should put a holiday program on radio to drop hint for them to migrate.

As to your point about the Queen ... I'm not English, and would feel just as peeved if the Queen was crapping on my boat.

[JTM]

I also like swallows but I've not tried them on a barbecue.

[Steve Walker]

Which is basically what they did - blocking the entrance while they were both out. I think that that is technically illegal though.

SteveW

[Rick Hughes]

After having to clean out another load of bird crap ..... and it's Sept. and according to those that know they should have migrated in August.

If this carries on they are heading for a lead injection.

[geoff]

Yeah, but you're advocating swallow on a spit