Hey fellow moorers - what's your best bird deterrent?

Anyone mooring a boat gets to fight the bird crap battle...at least in VT! For the past few years, I've had nothing but great luck using 2 FireFly Bird Flight Diverters...this year, not so much. I'm regularly washing off 5-6 seagull splotches from my cover and tower, and now that I have a new boat on the way, I want to protect it as best possible!

It could be that the "Fluorescent, reflective/luminescent properties producing 10+/- hour glow-in-the dark feature" have worn off & I just need to order 2 more?

Other than those goofy/clunky Gull Sweepers (guess I shouldn't make fun IF they work?), is anyone using something easy/compact or works 100% of the time?

We've used a life-sized rubber toy snake before, and it seemed to work pretty well.

I tied a couple of CD's to fishing line and hung them above the boat.. Got the Idea from a yacht broker that was tired of showing boats with bird s*** all over them.. Works great so far, and cheap...

We have a buttload of Canadian geese that setup camp on our beach all the time. I am tired of having 4000 piles of goose crap all over the place. These things are a mess.
So this year I bought 2 swam decoys from Gemplers.com & put them in the water on either side of our dock. I guess swans are a natural predator of geese. If we move the swans every day or two, then the geese seem to stay away. But if no one goes out & moves them around at all, then the geese will setup camp right next to the swans.
Only problem I have now is keeping the little kids off the swans. For some stupid reason they want to wrestle with them all the time, and their idiotic parents don't bother to parent the kids at all.

We used to use a fake owl but now I just remove every nest I see under the lift covers unless there are baby birds in there.

No thread hijack here but what about spiders also??

What birds?

I made a PVC "T" that slid over where you attach the rope on the tower.... from the sides of the "T" use string and have CDs dangle/spin - worked the best.

Owls - don't work
Fake snakes - Don't work

.... only real thing is movement and or noise.

I use this for spiders. spray every 3 months around my dock and it keeps them away.

http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/de...cide-p-74.html

+1 for cd's on fishing line. Any seasoned vet will attest to this.

I've seen all of these used in our marina but the best thing is to use the boat.
Bird-B-Gone

Rain bird sprinklers with motion detectors mounted on the pilings. Works 100%. Just remember to switch them off when you go down to the dock or you will get soaked.

How about ducks? Friggin have to clean duck crap off the swim step every morning.. and no I cannot hunt within the canals

sidekicknicholas - after reading your response, I built a prototype based on what you described. Am I on track?

I used 2" pvc with 3 eyelets screwed into the bottom of each side, attached to swivels. Depending on how well it sits on the tower, I may have to shorten the height or width (which is easy), or increase/decrease the width of the base with a coupling.

I'm going to paint it black and maybe add the pointy metal spikes to the top of the bar to keep seagulls from perching there!

I'm serious about keeping the crap off my new boat!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_scarer

The propane guns work well, that's what they use at the Airforce base near my house, if that doesn't work they break out the shotguns.

Kids pinwheels that spin in the wind (those plastic things that look like windmills). The movement and noise scares them

... on second thought I would make one of those "T" shapes out of metal - attache it to a car battery and let them land... shouldn't take them long to know they're not welcome

Besides the sprinkler suggestion i can offer this:
Capt. ted Naftel RIP was a good client of mine for 15 years. He had the pelicans trained to land on his boat, even when he cleaned fish next to every day. It seems the birds are somewhat local and stay in the area.
he used a BB gun with only 1 or 2 pumps. It didn't really hurt them but would teach them to stay off the boat. Every year there would a few new young ones that needed training but he swears he only had to pop them once of twice and they would learn.
I dunno, just sharing.

Owl eyes, or plastic owls!

baitkiller, what motion detectors did you use and how did you rig them to the rain birds? I think I might rig some in my boat house and also set up my yard sprinkler system to come on with motion so the neighbors quit walking their dogs in my yard (dog crap everywhere).

Originally Posted by wakebdr2002

baitkiller, what motion detectors did you use and how did you rig them to the rain birds? I think I might rig some in my boat house and also set up my yard sprinkler system to come on with motion so the neighbors quit walking their dogs in my yard (dog crap everywhere).

I don't know I didn't rig them but i did learn to turn them off! This is at a clients house.

Kevin - check out the Scarecrow Motion Activated Sprinkler @ Amazon! Be sure to click on the customer-uploaded images...they're hilarious!