Woodpeckers

[chrisjbell]

I've got a resident woodpecker that has decided that the edging along my roof is a great place to find snacks each morning. It is really annoying to hear the sound of a small hammer, plus he's putting holes in the wood. I don't see any signs of rot or insects so I'm not quite sure why he does this.

I've been tempted to remove him on a permanent basis, but he is a pretty sucker and he does get bugs out of some of my trees (well, either him or relatives of his). I've heard that you can put up plastic "flags" to discourage them. Does this work? Any thoughts?

[TimSullivan]

Some times the flags do work.

Just don't do what my neighbor tried. Every morning a woodpecker would start banging away at dawn on the aluminium gutter outside his bedroom window. One morning it was just too much and he grabbed his 12 gage. He missed the woodpecker but did a number on the gutter.

[chrisjbell]

<font color="blue"> He missed the woodpecker but did a number on the gutter. </font color>

[img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

Yeah, I'm trying to avoid the firearms route. But it is tempting - 'cause the guy tapping on my house also likes to smack the gutter around [img]/forums/images/icons/mad.gif[/img]...

[egon]

Woodpeckers sometimes define their area by hammerin on handy items such as power poles and houses that have good sound producing qualities.

Egon

[fivestring]

Well, he did remove 1/2 of the source of noise !!!! [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[TimSullivan]

<font color="green">
Well, he did remove 1/2 of the source of noise !!!!
</font color>

No the woodpecker was back the next morning and there was plenty of gutter left to bang on.

[chrisjbell]

Sounds like he'd better get to work and take the rest of the gutter off [img]/forums/images/icons/grin.gif[/img]... 'Couple more shots and he might get the bird, too. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]

[Slamfire]

Some smart feller in the Dept of the Interior released pine bark beetles a couple of years ago to feed our woodpeckers. Now we have plenty of dead yellow pines that were drought stressed last year, and no woodpeckers. They must have gotten too fat to fly. When I split the infested wood, the dogs gather round for the candy/larvae, that comes out of nearly every run through the splitter. About the only hard wood I'm getting comes from stuff I cut to expand the garden.

[fivestring]

Ah, the gubmint...
They know what's best for us....
I'm surprised the tree-huggers didn't get on that band wagon after the trees died.