Most unusual job ever

[volvopaul]

I have been asked by a customer to fit a plastic owl to his flybridge to combat the seagulls dropping there guts all over his phantom 46.

Where can I get one near to Shamrock quay area please?

Oh and do they actually work?

Maybe this could be a WNS " how do you stop cr&p appearing all over your boat"

 

[Prospect and Sunray]

The owl/ hawk "decoys" work for a short while, but the birds see they decoys don't move and then ignore them. You will be lucky if you get a week of peace and quiet before the birds return..... unfortunately.

Old CD's are much cheaper and more effective

 

[Vara]

There was a related question to this on gardeners question time the other day.

The concensus seemed to be whatever you used, tinsel, CDs on strings or model birds the offending visitors seem to get used to them so you had to change them regularly to get a lasting effect.

This is quite interesting;

http://www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/html/reviews/anti-perching-plastic-owls.html

I have a similar problem as ****e hawks(seagulls) perch on my radome and ****(defecate) over the aft deck.

 

[celtic_mist]

I'm using one of these

http://www.gullsweep.com/

With this I'm using a length of string from bow to radar arch ,Works a treat !

 

[OAF]

Hi Paul

I have one of those Eagle plastic birds sat on my wharf at work to try and stop the ducks from sitting and s*****g everywhere and they donk work, but when we were out this last week we were anchored next to a boat with a small device that made bird sounds, it was a bit annoying but it only sounded during daylight hours and the boat was spotless, when we saw the occupants I saked how old the boat was and to my amazement it was 4 years old however it looked like it had just been launched.

 

[Ripster]

I'm using one of these

http://www.gullsweep.com/

With this I'm using a length of string from bow to radar arch ,Works a treat !

A boat in Torq Harbour has one of these and the gulls just sit around it or on it! Same as the spiders, they just ignore them and sit between the arms. The only way we have found is to use fine green netting held off the surface somehow. The Gulls dont seem to like this to walk on and go elsewhere. Looks rubbish, but seems effective.

 

[Wiggo]

There are a couple of these: http://www.birdcontrol.net/html/Hawkkite.htm in use in Ocean Village. Not sure how effective they are, but SWMBO did comment on the lack of gulls at the weekend...

 

[harstonwood]

We had one on targa 33 (until gale force winds made it fly away) and it worked perfectly. We had one with a swiveling head! and beady eyes!

Buy from farm supplies shop, cheaper than chandlery

Mind you, seagulls sit on top of cheap plastic owl on neighboring boat!

 

[jhr]

We had one for some time and it seemed to be quite effective. It was suspended from above so that it swung with the breeze, and any waves that might pass by (our mooring is up-river and very sheltered). I suspect that might have helped lure the gulls into believing that it was alive, and not just a bit of inert plastic

 

[Elessar]

I have been asked by a customer to fit a plastic owl to his flybridge to combat the seagulls dropping there guts all over his phantom 46.

Where can I get one near to Shamrock quay area please?

Oh and do they actually work?

Maybe this could be a WNS " how do you stop cr&p appearing all over your boat"

Anchored nicely off sark in a sigma 36 on a lovely evening, a seagull sat on our tender's outboard ( a seagull as it happened!)

We'd had a nice curry that evening, so i wrapped some pataks extra hot lime pickle into some bread and threw it in the water.

Seagull dived in and ate it, then sat back on the seagull.

Small pause, a headshake. Pause, bigger headshake. Pause continuous headshaking, then a dive into the water. Then he flew off.

So there we have it. Develop a pataks delivery system. It works and its rather fun

 

[OAF]

Anchored nicely off sark in a sigma 36 on a lovely evening, a seagull sat on our tender's outboard ( a seagull as it happened!)

We'd had a nice curry that evening, so i wrapped some pataks extra hot lime pickle into some bread and threw it in the water.

Seagull dived in and ate it, then sat back on the seagull.

Small pause, a headshake. Pause, bigger headshake. Pause continuous headshaking, then a dive into the water. Then he flew off.

I would not have wanted that bird s*******g on my boat after eating that!!

 

[Firefly625]

apparently rubber snakes work for a while....

 

[Erik C]

At airports they use recordings of wounded birds and birds of prey. If it works for them it might work on a boat.

 

[Firefly625]

At airports they use recordings of wounded birds and birds of prey. If it works for them it might work on a boat.

you might get complaints from the neighbours..

 

[whisper]

I have been asked by a customer to fit a plastic owl to his flybridge to combat the seagulls dropping there guts all over his phantom 46.

Where can I get one near to Shamrock quay area please?

Oh and do they actually work?

Maybe this could be a WNS " how do you stop cr&p appearing all over your boat"

Have investigated/tried various "cures".
Owls, snakes, 2D hawks - don't work.
String of CD's sometimes work but flashing is a real problem for neighbours.
Bird sweep works but only when there's a breeze blowing and it/they have to cover all surfaces or else the b*****ds just sit outside the arc.
Only thing we've tried, that works long term, is netting that's suspended above superstructure surfaces. BUT it's a right pain to put up and take down.

 

[AndieMac]

At airports they use recordings of wounded birds and birds of prey. If it works for them it might work on a boat.

We tried that system a few years ago. The gulls landed on the marina pontoons in the late afternoon, early evening after a busy day at the refuse site
after a fortnight the small speakers had **** all over them. I think the birds even cuddled up to them and the control box for warmth.

 

[Assassin]

A 12 bore works surprisingly well.

 

[AndieMac]

A 12 bore works surprisingly well.

Funny you should say that....we even tried the small vineyard cannons that fire off on a pre-set basis, from a pontoon across the river about 50 metres away. Worked really well until the hotel guests got grumpy.

 

[jhr]

Anchored nicely off sark in a sigma 36 on a lovely evening, a seagull sat on our tender's outboard ( a seagull as it happened!)

We'd had a nice curry that evening, so i wrapped some pataks extra hot lime pickle into some bread and threw it in the water.

Seagull dived in and ate it, then sat back on the seagull.

Small pause, a headshake. Pause, bigger headshake. Pause continuous headshaking, then a dive into the water. Then he flew off.

So there we have it. Develop a pataks delivery system. It works and its rather fun

Had a very similar scenario in the Isles of Scilly with this blighter, in the company of jimi and ParaHandy:

.

We'd just finished an excellent curry and decided to offer the seagull a bread and extra hot curry paste sarnie. It gobbled it up, looked a bit bemused, had a drink, crapped on the outboard and dinghy and flew off..... not quite the result we'd hoped for and jimi had to lead a scrubbing party before we were prepared to climb in the dinghy

 

[Nautical]

Reminds me of spending a whole afternoon stringing up 20 metres of twine with hundreds of tin foil strips tried on. Stood back and admired this vision of a thousand twinkley flashy bits of tin only to watch a big fat seagull swoop down, grab one and pull the entire line off the boat and fly off with 20 metres of line dangling behind him :-( , all the peeps on the pontoon burst out laughing, the shame and humiliation of being out witted by a dumb bird.

Mind you, I have had the same experience with the human variety as well!