Bird Poo and Magnets?

I would have said "snake oil" ..... but the article looks convincing so might be worth a try. Even if it does work for some species, I'd be very surprised if it works for all so it's success, or not, might well depend upon which bird is doing the scotting.

Richard
 
I do wonder, if it makes a magnetic field strong enough to annoy birds - what is the effect on the ships compass / autohelm electronic (field effect) compass
 
The quantum-biological process to which one of her links refers is fascinating. There’s a description here http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/cryptochrome/ and if you search you can find a fairly recent paper with a long list of animals in whose eyes cryptochrome had been found, but I cannot recall offhand what birds were on it.

She does say to hang the magnets well away from the compass, and presumably one could use magnets with keepers and put them on whilst sailing?
 
My theory is that it is location that dictates birds interest in sitting on your boat. Plus the evidence of birds being there before gives them confidence. So a clean boat used often will not attract birds like an unused very grubby boat.
However if you wish to try magnets and it does seem some birds navigate by earth's magnetic field then yo need a bar type magnet to spread the magnetic field around as far as possible. Most powerful magnets come in a form where the field is directed towards (concentrated on ) a small gap. This to maintain the powerful magnetism. Like a horse shoe magnet has the field confined to the area between the poles. A permanent magnet motor will have magnets inside with poles connected by iron via gaps where it rotates. A loud speaker magnet has pole pieces to make a small annular gap where the coil moves in and out. You would need to extract the magnet from the pole pieces so N and S are as far away from one another as possible and place around the deck.
So let us know if it makes any difference. olewill
 
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