Most unusual job ever

plastic owl

No, as others have said, birds that do not recognise owls don·nt feel threatened,,,,,,,,,

Best method I have seen is in a spanish marina, they were plagued with seaguls and cormarants.

They made stainless steel arch ways, (small bore tube) then threaded fishing line between, only four strands on top of the arch, now 12 months on
and never seen a bird anywhere near. so why not try it on motor boats,,,some already have the arch, to put sunshade,
 
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!

That made me laff out loud, must have been very funny to watch!
 
There is a boat at Fareham Creek with a very lifelike large crow (so real it may be a stuffed one rather than plastic) sat inside the wheelhouse window looking out over the coach roof. Last time I passed this boat there were about 7/8 other crows pacing about the coach roof looking at the crow inside.
Wind generators seem to discourage birds from settling on boats pretty effectively, in my limited experience.
 
my method

I had a problem with bird cack all over my flybridge rader arch..seemed the culprit was perching on my light fitting to do its business on a regular basis...I tried the usual stuff and then in desperation decided to try my own thing..so cleared up all the mess for the 16th time and created this

I got a load of Gaffer tape and attached several strips (Sticky side up) to the top of the light fitting so that they flutterred in the breeze .. wasnt completely happy with that so removed whole lot and stuck several flat head 4 inch nails through it and then re attached the whole thing...new contraption had ... 6 lengths of 6 inch fluttering sticky tape with several sticky up nails at the centre to deter any criter landing on it......seemed to work for the whole of last winter...removed it for summer cruise and forgot to rebuild it afterwards....birds came back..

V2 is now in place and working fine
 
Gas Power Bird Scarer

Gas_gun_bird_scarer.jpg


Beats the hell out of CD's!!! Nieghbours might not be too happy :D :D :D
 
Eyes

Not sure if there is any truth in it, but I have been told that birds are made very uncomfortable by being "watched" by something larger that they can't comprehend. If you have a satellite dome aboard, stick two adhesive eyes onto the top of it. It could make your boat look like a 1970's VW beetle, but if it keeps the gulls off it's cheap!
 
there is a device which looks like a very large wind vane times 4. suppoeted on a centre pivot and revloves in the wind. Excellent detterent on top of canvas covers or flybridge.
Saw it in chandlers todat at nearly £50 though
 
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