Time to batten down the hatches. Shut all the Swallow access windows etc. Renew netting etc etc. Lay in supply of scaring rockets .. don't do a lot of good but do give a nice 'feel good' factor of 10 minutes of no Starling chatter. (try a starting pistol with the louder blanks. Now that IS good fun as they have no respect for you at when they are all in the tree that you are now standing under!!! but they DO learn to!!) Put the washing line away until 2021 as it will soon be unusable. Get in good supply of car shampoo as no matter where you park it, 'they' will find it! Resign yourself to black and white sploggy cows that once were all black. Remember to always carry gloves as no matter how hard you try, 'they' WILL find a way in and decorate all gates and rails. Worry about the end of the winter when a different group of starlings pass through bringing diseases not seen before. Yes, the starling scouts are in! Just twos and threes so far looking around for easy pickings. We have probably just 2 weeks left of being able to hear autumnal Robin songs, Long Tailed Tit flocks with Goldcrests and rustling fallen leaves before the chatter starts. As if Covid and Brexit wasn't enough depression to deal with!
Starlings 2020
- Thread starter glow worm
- Start date
dudders
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Used to have plenty here, but none at all for the last few years. You miss them when they're gone!
Likewise here
I beg to differ!! What I do miss, a lot, and I don't know if anyone else has noticed the same, is the fact that our Greenfiches have all dissapeared, for several months now. We used to have loads on the birds table but none now. Blue and Great Tit numbers are also down but I have never seen so many Goldfinces. They used to be a very rare sighting on the bird table but now 10+ is common. As for the starlings, 20+ scouts today. Ever watched Jaws and that music? Well thats them! Sneaky they are. Not a sound, not a single chatter. They are just 'there' when you look up. Silently, increasingly, gathering on the wires, taking it all in, planning their stratorgy
dudders
Member
- Location
- East Sussex
Giving it a good top-dressing...
Looks like you're low-lying, so maybe close to a river? If they come after you about high nitrate levels in the water, you can tell them why.
Looks like you're low-lying, so maybe close to a river? If they come after you about high nitrate levels in the water, you can tell them why.
Yes low lying and river 2 fields away,
- Location
- Warwickshire
Has anyone used the Portek laser bird scarer to clear them off, I'd like to hear from others before spending ?
- Location
- Near Beeston Castle
Just get a laser pen off ebay for a fiver and see for yourself if they work. Spend a tenner and you will get a seriously strong laser.
Yes we have one. Effective at scaring birds at dawn and dusk or on a dull day. Not effective for permanently chasing them or on bright clear days. We bought one to scare migrant wooper swans who flock to us in their hundreds between October and April each year. The laser can definitely chase them very effectively but you'd need to be scaring them all day every day to keep them away. I don't know if Starlings are any different, but swans and geese are really hard to shift.
Use the Portex sky rockets when I want a 15 minute feel good silence! Much more fun, if you're around the actual farm buildings a lot, is to carry a starter pistol with the bigger blanks! They don't see you as a risk to start off with but they do after a week or so!!
- Tags
- udder