Anyone else having an inundation of these blackbirds? The folks on the street behind us have to set up balloons filled with helium every night to try and keep the birds from roosting in their trees. In addition they use firecrackers or bearbangers to get them to move on. Each tree literally has hundreds of birds in them. Apparantly last year they were so bad the streets were covered with droppings.
I was thinking of purchasing a falcon decoy and putting it on the roof. Anyone else have any ideas?
Starlings?
Moderator: Excalibur Marketing Dude
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Red Label
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Marmot
Starlings are primo air rifle quarry! I currently use a Beeman R-9 ( Weihrauch HW95), spring-piston, precision pellet rifle for starling duty. Please send them down here, and I will take care of the problem.Red Label wrote:If you keep moving the decoy around it might work. They get used to static objects pretty fast.
My advice? .177 pellet gun.
take fishing line and tie turkey tape about ever 10 feet or so climb in tree and string fishing line from the tree they roost in to another tree or right in there flight path they will not come to it at all i seen this done to keep robbins out of the ceader hedge from nesting and there was not one bird that flew up the drive way
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Spring
In the early 60's when I was a kid growing up in Galt, (Cambridge) Ontario, each year about this time the local Sportsman's Club offered their services to thin out the local starling population on city streets.
As memory serves all of this was overseen by the local police. The shoot went on for a week or so and moved around til all of the neighbourhoods were thinned out. Shotgunfire could be heard all over town each evening til dark. It was all perfectly acceptable then. At that time Galt had a population of about 28,000.
The Sportsman's Club members would shoot them and as fast as they fell the Portuguese and Italian populations would collect them for cooking.
That sure was a different day and time.
Cheers!
As memory serves all of this was overseen by the local police. The shoot went on for a week or so and moved around til all of the neighbourhoods were thinned out. Shotgunfire could be heard all over town each evening til dark. It was all perfectly acceptable then. At that time Galt had a population of about 28,000.
The Sportsman's Club members would shoot them and as fast as they fell the Portuguese and Italian populations would collect them for cooking.
That sure was a different day and time.
Cheers!
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Red Label
When we were kids we had a garden shed that faced the burning barrels at the back of the yard. Mom would throw food scraps etc. in the bins, and the starlings swarmed in. It was about 10 yard shooting through a crack in the door....man we killed starlings by the hundreds....
We had a line of chokecherry trees (messy things!) that drew in grackles too. I remember laying on the front seat of Dad's car and shooting up through the open drivers side window at them. (my first ground blind was a '74 Chevelle!
)
We had a small orchard too, and the cherry trees were a good draw for many bird varieties. I think I wore out about three break-action pellet guns growing up. All this wanton killing was approved of by my parents, as the birds were a nuisance to a large gardening family (7 kids) that relied on self-made produce to sustain a meager single payroll.
Those were the days.
We had a line of chokecherry trees (messy things!) that drew in grackles too. I remember laying on the front seat of Dad's car and shooting up through the open drivers side window at them. (my first ground blind was a '74 Chevelle!
) We had a small orchard too, and the cherry trees were a good draw for many bird varieties. I think I wore out about three break-action pellet guns growing up. All this wanton killing was approved of by my parents, as the birds were a nuisance to a large gardening family (7 kids) that relied on self-made produce to sustain a meager single payroll.
Those were the days.
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Fur & Feathers
- Posts: 268
- Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2004 3:35 pm
- Location: Central NY
The starlings, for the most part seem to be avoiding our backyard. It seems that our Canadian flag flapping in the breeze is enough to deter them.
On my way to work this am there was a water truck hosing down the street behind us(I'm assuming to clean up the droppings, as other streets were not watered), where the majority of the starling problem has been. I haven't really noticed if there is a particular type of tree they prefer, but it seems as though that street bears the brunt of the problem.
I would love to use my pellet gun, but my neighbours may not be so open with this.
On my way to work this am there was a water truck hosing down the street behind us(I'm assuming to clean up the droppings, as other streets were not watered), where the majority of the starling problem has been. I haven't really noticed if there is a particular type of tree they prefer, but it seems as though that street bears the brunt of the problem.
I would love to use my pellet gun, but my neighbours may not be so open with this.
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larderlake
- Posts: 33
- Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2004 6:23 pm
- Location: Ontario , Canada
Starlings
This happens every year at this time in Burlington and every year we the roads and parks dept. have to deal with the problem of cleaning up after these birds. Being in the City especially Burlington sure makes the decision on how far we can go which is not far with pests, but out of City Limits I know what I could do.
LL
LL
Chris,
Our neighbours across the street had that problem a few years ago. The birds would arrive in their backyard trees by the thousands around sunset and set up for the night. They tried everything to get rid of them. Finally they got a small battery operated tape player that played a tape of a hawk's call every minute or so. Don't know where. Put it in the tree. The birds vamoosed - way down the street to someoneelses trees. Problem solved.
Maple
Our neighbours across the street had that problem a few years ago. The birds would arrive in their backyard trees by the thousands around sunset and set up for the night. They tried everything to get rid of them. Finally they got a small battery operated tape player that played a tape of a hawk's call every minute or so. Don't know where. Put it in the tree. The birds vamoosed - way down the street to someoneelses trees. Problem solved.
Maple