What a HOOT!

For those of you who have been following our blog for a bit, you know that we have been battling the bird – poopy pigeons – for some time.  Roosting and pooping on the ledges of our building and the public sidewalk below.  It has been a disgusting mess to say the least.  We started with 3 or 4 and the brood grew to about 25 birds over the past 4 months.  We went to the trouble of making some make shift roosting deterrents and recently ordered up some bird deterrent spike strips that you install on all the ledges of the building to keep the birds from being able to land and roost – they have yet to arrive and to say the least, they were expensive.  Our make shift bird gadgets failed miserably.  We would walk out at night and see the pigeons roosting on our homemade bird deterrents….  *sigh*

 

So last week I am walking in Home Depot and I see ONE lone plastic owl in the outside garden section.  You know – the tacky plastic kind with the glowing yellow eyes.  Knowing that the owl is a bird of prey, I think to myself, “hummmm, maybe this tacky plastic owl would be worth a try…..”  So I buy the owl and we install the plastic bird hanging from the rail of the fire escape on the third floor.  Additionally, we spend that night banging on the windows behind the area where the birds are roosting to scare them off.

We are on day 10 and it appears the tacky owl is doing his job.  At least for now - - the pigeons have relocated to another building ledge downtown.  Now the game will be to move the owl and keep its presence fresh.  Who would have thought a plastic owl would do the trick??? At least for now…