Woodpeckers
 

So I bought a house at the lake which was constructed in 2006. It has your typical California stucco siding and a tile roof. I have a serious problem with Woodpeckers. At 6am every morning, three of these gorgeous birds start hammering on my stucco and tile. It seems a little odd to me that they are drawn to these materials.

Outside of shooting the little bastards which I would rather not do - I need them to stop. They are loud enough to wake us up in the morning and they are doing massive damage to my stucco exterior and cracking my tile roof.

Any advice?

In North Idaho Woodpeckers are also a problem. I have built several houses and they are tough to stop. I have tried the fake owl, cd's strung up on fishing line, bird tape and recorded Woodpecker distress calls on a boom box. The only thing that worked was allegedly sniping them. I did not nor do I condone killing Woodpeckers.

They like stucco and metal because of the sound. I wish I could be more help.

Is there a chance you have bugs of some sort they may be pecking to eat?

My neighbors lake house is pine log sided and he had an ant problem. Wood peckers tore the hell out of some of his siding to get at the ants.

They peck to find grubs and bugs.. Also peck to communicate with other woodpeckers. I have tried everything to scare them off. Fake owl, tin foil, cds, a big fake snake, Nothing works. They only do it certain times of the year and they do it on my metal vent and drain pipes. They are protected so you can't legally shoot them.

Nothing's illegal if you don't get caught...

Almost every single house in Jason's hood has the exact same wood pecker damage.
So I dont think there would be much love loss if you were to snipe them. Why don't you ask the HOA what their recomadations are. Talk to your neighbors and get a sence how they wood feel about "the woodpecker hunter"

Sub sonic .22's allegedly work well. In my opinion they are basically flying rats. I bet the lawmakers that declared them protected don't live in an area where they are a problem. On the one house I built I replaced over $5k in Cedar siding the first year.

Shooting a GUN in a populated neighborhood is not going to go over well. Subsonic rounds are not much more quiet then regular rounds so both of those options are out and what if you miss?

A traditional BB gun will do the trick

^Correct. Subsonic rounds are made to be used in conjunction with a suppressor. Since they are slower than the speed of sound they do not have that report when they fly, and because of the supressor, the initial explosion from the primer and the powder is quieted down so you don't hear much of anything besides the impact of the bullet.
Using a subsonic round by itself means you don't hear the bullet crack through the air, but you will still hear the shot being fired and what is hit by it. Everyone will hear it.
A traditional BB gun would work, I'd lean more towards using a pointed nosed pellet to take them out though. Also some of the newer, higher end pellet guns shoot as hard as .22s and they are legal to shoot in most populated areas, unlike a .22lr.
I have an old school .22 pellet rifle that shoots at about 650fps, subsonics fie at about 1,000fps. It will definitely take out some critters and is quiet.