Axel Grease wrote:


"C & E" wrote in message
...

"Axel Grease" wrote in message
ns...
"Mark & Juanita" wrote in message
...

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:
http://www.kabatape.com 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.

--

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 - http://www.shopwiki.com/search/Owl+Decoy
Some places also sell hawk decoys.

Axel


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.

Not read as a flame.. no problem.

It might help if we knew what kind of woodpeckers are at work drilling on
their shop.

I've got to research the species, but these are native to the Sonoran
desert.

Around here, we get everything from the huge Piliated woodpeckers to cute
little Downys.
In 50+ years in the hardwoods of the frozen North , I have never noticed
woodpeckers drilling deeply unless hungry.
Up here, they must eat a lot to stay warm and alive. Luring mates usually
has other forms of behaviour... nest making high up in trees, dances, or
shallow drumming on hollow limbs high up in trees... which resonate much
better than T-111 siding. Maybe Mark and Juanita don't have enough big
trees with dead limbs as an alternative for the local birds.


Yep. Not a lot of dead trees and branches, even in our desert (definitely
more lush than the Chihuahuan desert or Mojave, but buildings and yards are
more attractive to the birds.

As for Gerald Ross, whose woodpeckers were banging on a tin roof... we do
get some birds doing odd things here too. Robins and Chickadees often
fight with their reflections in windows or even chrome vehicle bumpers...
ducks
occasionally fly straight into picture windows too. But I always figure
those are exceptionally dumb individuals, or birds with bad eyesight.


Ours do that consistently during the spring and early summer.

Axel

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough