Woodpeckers are extraordinarily gorgeous birds. They’re colourful, lovable and they peck around for insects or for supplies for nest building. But their presence around your place might be enough to drive you loony. They’re known to make pecking sounds at dawn that will disturb your beauty sleep. What’s worse, these birds have the disposition to puncture your wooden house, transforming your smooth, wooden exterior into a dartboard ( minus the darts ).
They chip out a lot of wood from your house, enough to convert your humble abode into an embarrassing place to live. Your house will ultimately lose its beauty and who knows what kind of eerie stories the children in your neighborhood might say about your place. Worse, they might think you’re the Blair Witch in hiding.
Here are the 3 major reasons that explain why these majestic birds become a major bother.
Drumming – This is an action male woodpeckers do during wooing. Drumming is their type of communication for saying territory. In urbanized areas, rain gutters, chimneys, vent caps and wood sidings are glorious places for woodpeckers to practice drumming. Once you hear this bird drumming around, it is like them asserting to you This area is mine now and I am here to stay!
Feeding – Woodpeckers peck wood in the search for food. It is extremely common for wooden homes ( that are usually exposed to shower or shine ) to have some variety of insect or wood worm living in fence posts, wood sidings and application posts. These insects are sufficient motivation for woodpeckers to hang around your home.
Nesting – Woodpeckers are known to hammer the wood sidings of many houses to serve as their nesting hole. Many wooden homes have some cavities that these birds find suitable for nesting.
Since woodpeckers are regarded as migratory birds, you do not expect them to be around your home 365 days a year. They generally visit you only during their breeding season, which only lasts a few weeks. At this time of the year, the most damaging factor due to woodpeckers is when they come to a decision to create a non permanent territory around your home. Many known woodpecker controls are speculated to cause some long term harm to the birds. These are some of them.
- One methodology is the applying of sticky resins like Roost-No-More or Tanglefoot on areas of difficulty. These resins are built to keep the birds off certain surfaces you would not need them to be perching on. Nonetheless it can adhere to the bird’s plumage and may lead to a bird’s difficulty taking flight.
- Rather than resins, a few individuals use suet as an alternative. Suet is a tough greasy tissue from meat loins that isn’t unusual in cooking. The utilization of suet is deterred by some because when the weather gets warm, the suet liquifies and will permanently stick to the bird’s feathers even though it feeds.
Successful woodpecker management is actually about spotting damage early and applying speedy action. After you spot a difficulty area and delay any corrective action, it’s more troublesome to stop the birds from making more damage. Never permit them to feel welcome, or else it’d be complicated for them to leave your place alone.
These are some safe woodpecker measures you need to consider.
First is a Visible Obstructions . Ward of woodpeckers with things that typically frighten them. Effective visible deterrents may be anything that moves and reflects light. You can try hanging strips of foil ( For other uses of alcan foil, read thirty Unusual uses for tin foil ) from a string that is nailed on the side of your home where the woodpecker likes to perch and peck. There are bird control sellers who sell electrifying looking silhouettes of voracious birds, which you can hang close to the areas of difficulty. If you spot that the woodpeckers become used to your hanging scarecrows, it is time to turn to something else.
You can always trap them. If all else fails and you feel your home is being attacked by stubborn woodpeckers, you may resort to capturing them and have them carried off by wildlife personnel. To do this, you have to obtain a special permit from the State and Federal Wildlife Agency. Before you blow your top off and decide to storm out on your front door with a shotgun in hand, you must know that these creatures are protected by federal law. The woodpeckers are one of the species covered by the Migratory Bird Act of 1918.
Joe Singleton has over 20 years of experience in wildlife and nature exploration. Please read more here about woodpecker deterrent
Joe Singleton Woodpeckers & other birds Wildlife, Woodpecker Control, Woodpecker Deterrent, Woodpecker Repellent, Woodpeckers, Woodpeckers & other birds