Arrgh.....Bird Wars

Torcan · Post by **Torcan** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 7:23 am

I don't know about the rest of you, but since I put my boat in the water last weekend, being one of the first because it was on a trailer and trailers have to be gone for the launch this coming weekend of the other boats that are stored in cradles.
(For those that are not experienced in this, they use huge construction boom trucks with slings to lift and place the boats from the hard to the water.)

Anyways..on to my story:

I have 2 canada Goose, (ya, the guy who made this our National Bird really stuck it to us)
They have decided to lay across my Bimini top. Not only are they causing it to sag, they crap on it as well. The female is trying to lay an egg, (so I am told from other boaters who have had this problem finding eggs on their tops.)

I get on the boat and they just remain there, so I get under the Bimini and give it a good punch, scares the hell out of them, they fly off, only to return after I've left the boat and the process starts all over again.

I'll keep doing this, and if they succeed in laying an egg, I'll make the biggest omelette and serve it to the fish.

vabeach1234 · Post by **vabeach1234** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 8:02 am

You may want to try to tying some fishing line across the top of your bimini some how. I've seen a lot of people tie it on their bow pulpit to fend of the birds. Birds tend to stay away from it and it isn't that much of an eye sore. However, if the bird is dumb enough, you may come back to your boat to a tied up mess on top of your bimini, bird included.

Stripermann2 · Post by **Stripermann2** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 9:02 am

Just what Ken said. Make a webbing of fish line... Their webbed feet don't like the tangle and they won't perch.

Could be worse...around here, in the Chesapeake area, the Osprey builds nests in boat towers and bimini tops. Had one captain some years back who hadn't checked on his boat until late spring...by then the Osprey had a huge nest of sticks and was roosting on his boat. There was also large stickers plastered on his boat placed by DNR, stating that no one could board the vessel or otherwise disturb the roosting of the Osprey! Yep, a federally protected bird.

Gotta get to them before they make your boat, their home.

prowlersfish · Post by **prowlersfish** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 12:43 pm

Along with the fishing line tie some CDs the movement anf reclection seems to keep them away

larryeddington · Post by **larryeddington** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 1:09 pm

cage em and send em down here to Texas, we will eat em for you.

k9th · Post by **k9th** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 1:19 pm

The wire/fishing line thing works well and several marinas on the great lakes have wires installed over the dock areas to keep birds away. The CD thing works well too and a lot of boats in our marina use them since we don't have wires over the entire dock area in our marina.

rossjo · Post by **rossjo** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:04 pm

How do they respond to BB's?

randyp · Post by **randyp** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 3:32 pm

No offense to our Canadian members intented, but your national bird is a rat with wings. The damned things have totally pooped up a small island on our lake that used to be a great place to anchor and have kids play in the sand. Now the get to frolic in piles of goose crap. It used to be sort of nice to hear them leaving during the fall and coming back in the spring. But now, they just hang around all year and make a general mess of things. Along with the fishing line idea I like the BB's idea, except maybe from a 12 gauge.

Torcan · Post by **Torcan** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 4:20 pm

randyp wrote:No offense to our Canadian members intented, but your national bird is a rat with wings. The damned things have totally pooped up a small island on our lake that used to be a great place to anchor and have kids play in the sand. Now the get to frolic in piles of goose crap. It used to be sort of nice to hear them leaving during the fall and coming back in the spring. But now, they just hang around all year and make a general mess of things. Along with the fishing line idea I like the BB's idea, except maybe from a 12 gauge.

No offence taken, like I said, the guy who made it our National Bird should have been strung up.
Most canadians Hate the Bird as well, Rats on wings is being nice.

UPDATE:
Seems they have left me alone!!!! yesterday I installed outriggers and left the poles up at 15 feet, Yahoo... no birds today, just came by squaking at me, I guess it's their way of giving me the finger, or feather as they say in Bird talk

pk · Post by pk » Mon Apr 25, 2011 4:50 pm

larryeddington wrote:cage em and send em down here to Texas, we will eat em for you.

But Larry! I donÂ´t think those birds are big enough for Texas dinners...

larryeddington · Post by **larryeddington** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:49 pm

We have folks who spend a lot of $$$ to hunt Canadians (that is geese not people) during winter as some of them voluntarily fly down here, we try and limit their return North. You must cook up two or three to have a mess.

Down here we refer to pigeons as rats with wings. The tree huggers got a shooting club to stop live pigeon shoots, but the huggers did not take the 25,000 birds from the club home with them.

Want some more pigeons or the real name Rock Dove?

pk · Post by pk » Mon Apr 25, 2011 5:54 pm

We have the same name for those birds here in Norway, the Canadians. We call them Canadian Goose, or Kanadagas in Norwegian... But they taste real good roasted.

captainmaniac · Post by **captainmaniac** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 6:32 pm

I had a 'visitor' last spring as well... some friends of ours (live-aboards at the marina) said this bugger showed up time and time again for the first 2-3 weeks after I launched. I guess our friends waving a boat hook in its general direction from time to time convinced it to move on...

: 55c5b583_zpsba4c501f.jpg (51.15 KiB) Viewed 2965 times

On the plus side - we got rid of it before the cockpit carpet was installed. Easier to rinse goose poop off the deck than trying to get it out of the carpet

Big D · Post by **Big D** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 8:59 pm

Line and CDs work great. I also tried the dollar store for some rubber snakes. Put a few on the boat and up in the slip trusses. No more birds. I find the trick is to change it up every once in a while, don't give them time to get use to anything.

rossjo · Post by **rossjo** » Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:34 pm

BB gun with pellets is deadly (and quiet).

Quite fun actually!