Us Against the Birds

It was a contest between the birds that wanted to use Questeria as a bathroom and Ron and Fran who wanted to use her as a sailboat. There was no compromising.

The problems started after the boat was moved to Newfound Harbor. At first this wasn’t a problem because George and Nancy were moving from Questeria to Steel Lady and they had the boats tied together. The birds seem to prefer boats are not occupied so once Questeria was moved away from Steel Lady, they felt it was free game.

There are two types of birds and they each have their favorite spot. The first type is sea gulls and they like to sit on the solar panel, which is near the stern and the bow sprit. The second type is called “mud ducks” (I’ve heard them called other names which are not printable) and they like to sit on spreader bar up on the mast.

Some Things That Don’t Work

Guns – Well actually guns would probably do the trick (eventually) if you were willing to risk shooting a hole in your boat. I’ve never tried one, but I imagine it would be sort of messy even if you were enough of a sharp shooter to never hit anything else.

BB Guns – We have tried shooting at mud ducks on the spreader bar with a BB gun. It won’t kill them, but they will feel it. If you hit one three times, it will leave, but will probably be back tomorrow.

CDs – We hung a bunch of old CDs on heavy duty fishing line. The thinking was that they would blow around in the wind and scare away the birds. In reality they cut through or twist up in the line and leave an extra mess to clean when you get back to the boat.

Aluminum Foil Pie Pans – We tried tying an aluminum foil pie pan to a small rope and hanging it over the solar panel. The birds just moved to a place where the pie pan did not actually hit them in the head.

Some Things That Work

Tarps – The first time we cleaned the sail cover and bimini we covered it with a tarp before we left. This did not keep the birds away, but it kept the canvas clean. It is also a deterrent when it blows in the wind. The first time we did it, we had only one tarp which was not even big enough to cover everything. We figured that we would have to throw it away, but hanging it overboard, tied to a line cleans it up quite nicely. The second time we left the boat anchored we bought more tarps and cleaned them the same way. You can tie them down with rope, but large cable ties are much easier to use. The biggest problem with tarps is that they will blow around and the grommets will rip out.

Polycarbonate Spikes – We bought six three foot lengths of Poly-Spikes from birdbarrier.com . These are plastic spikes that are on a three foot long strip. We highly recommend these people, but don’t order on-line, call them on the phone; they are friendly and willing to help. This way you only need order as much as you need. We put four strips on the spreader bars (they overlapped some), and two on the sides of the solar panel. They also have metal spikes, but the poly spikes work and will not harm the birds.

Daddi Long Legs – You can buy a Daddi Long Legs from the same place that you buy the polycarbonate spikes. We bought the removable boat bas for $6 and used rope and cable ties to attach it to our solar panel. We purchased the four foot Daddi Long Legs and used Poly-Spikes   on each side to keep the birds off the sides of the solar panel.

Netting – Birds don’t like to land on netting. They are afraid they will get their feet stuck in it. We had some old gill net that was left by Fran’s granddaddy but we didn’t bring it down to the boat because it was still attached to the line, weights and floats and we were running short of time and luggage space. We thought we would be able to get some locally. We discovered that it is not an easy thing to buy in the Florida Keys. We did find some replacement netting for fishing nets. We cut this up and tied it together with cable ties and it did a good job of keeping the birds off.

The picture shows it over the satellite dish, but before that it was over the solar panel until we got the Daddi Long Legs.

Osprey Kite – We ordered two Osprey Kite Kits online. When they arrived I was skeptical. I never thought it would last. I put t together using glue and thread. We bought some water resistant glue and we reinforced some of it with thread.

We brought it to the boat and tied it to a small rope using large swivels. We hoisted it up the mast. It didn’t always want to fly right side up and kept getting caught in the stays.

Even so, the birds did not like it and although it was not 100% effective, it was out there for a month and helped keep the birds away.