Humming Tape

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lukesdad

Guest
Am going to try this instead of netting ( bit of a pain ) to protect our fruit bushes from the birds this year, and wondered if anybody had tried it and if it was successful ?
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
It didn't stop those fekken Parakeet's from destroying my next door neighbours Plum crop last year
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buddha

Veteran
I built a gazebo thingy next to my fruit trees. Which the local cat population use as a lookout.
Seems to keep the birds away.
 
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lukesdad

lukesdad

Guest
I built a gazebo thingy next to my fruit trees. Which the local cat population use as a lookout.
Seems to keep the birds away.


No near neighbours and our cat s a lazy git part of the problem really the birds just laugh at him.
 

zacklaws

Guru
Location
Beverley
Netting is more guaranteed to do the job, I used to use video tape which does the same and if you put one or two twists in it, it sort of flashes as well. The only problems I found with it is, it only works if its windy and in my back garden the wind was not constant enough to make it hum much, I would forget about it and walk through it and snap it, and birds would eventually ignore it, that's if it ever did spook them and it would snap on its own.

I have heard the stuff in allotments that is very open to the wind and it does make a good hum.

I have even tried big imitation owls perched on high poles in the garden. The first time I used one, I was setting it up, when I saw a blackbird land, so I held the owl up and nothing happened, then I noticed the owl was not facing the blackie so I rotated it face round so the blackie could see its eyes and at that point the blackie cacked itself and flew off into the bushes in panic sqwauking. Now the birds are that use to them, they perch on their heads between the pointy ears.

I even made a big black cat out of plywood with two big silver eyes and that did work, providing I kept moving it around every few days. In fact it was that good, I came home late one night after a skinfull, put the kitchen light on, and jumped out of my skin when I saw this pair of eyes glowing up the garden reflecting the kitchen light back.

You can get reflective tape, but it was not succesfull either.

Hanging lots of CD's etc up works for a while, and when it stops working you can sometimes get a good light show in your garden as they flutter in the wind reflecting the Sun onto things.

Hanging carrier bags up, also works, but once again for only a short time
 

ianrauk

Tattooed Beat Messiah
Location
Rides Ti2
I even made a big black cat out of plywood with two big silver eyes and that did work, providing I kept moving it around every few days. In fact it was that good, I came home late one night after a skinfull, put the kitchen light on, and jumped out of my skin when I saw this pair of eyes glowing up the garden reflecting the kitchen light back.

Classic..
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lukesdad

lukesdad

Guest
Ive tried most of those deterrents too Zack and found moving them around is the only way they work. As Ian says very funny the cat episode. :biggrin:
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Ive tried most of those deterrents too Zack and found moving them around is the only way they work.

I dunno if you can get them for domestic use, but I've seen some large kite sort of things, shaped like birds of prey, flying in fields. They are usually on a short piece of line, tied to the top of a long bendy pole, so they stay 'hovering' even in a light breeze.

With a bit of google-fu:

http://www.scarem.co...-kite-hawk.html


A bit pricey, and large, but just the basic raptor shape will scare birds - a bird shape with a sort neck and a long tail. I remember reading about an experiment where some researchers flew a very basic cruciform bird shape on a wire over a field. With a long tail, birds took flight. Going the other way, with a long neck, they didn't - it just looks like a duck or goose.

You could try making something similar, on a shorter pole for garden scale.
 
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lukesdad

lukesdad

Guest
I dunno if you can get them for domestic use, but I've seen some large kite sort of things, shaped like birds of prey, flying in fields. They are usually on a short piece of line, tied to the top of a long bendy pole, so they stay 'hovering' even in a light breeze.

With a bit of google-fu:

http://www.scarem.co...-kite-hawk.html


A bit pricey, and large, but just the basic raptor shape will scare birds - a bird shape with a sort neck and a long tail. I remember reading about an experiment where some researchers flew a very basic cruciform bird shape on a wire over a field. With a long tail, birds took flight. Going the other way, with a long neck, they didn't - it just looks like a duck or goose.

You could try making something similar, on a shorter pole for garden scale.
Mmm like the sound of the kite Arch. As we have quite a lot of area to cover that may do the trick. We do have a lot of birds of prey that circle our place Buzzards & Sparrowhawks and the occasional falcon. One got one of our doves last year. We witnessed it ! but obviously they re not around 24/7. So ill give it a try thanks.
 

zacklaws

Guru
Location
Beverley
The birds are devastating my veg this year, and its only last years crop I have not bothered with, especially the spinach, full grown plants stripped by pigeons and sparrows, this years are still under nets but soon, when it gets bigger the nets will have to come off.

So while I have had a bit of time off, I have decided to remake my "CAT" as it was so successful in two versions:-

Version 1. Just a cats head
Version 2. A full grown cat sat upright.

Instead of using plywood this time which eventually succumbed to the damp, I have made them out of plastic sheet that I "Found". A quick Google online for cat drawings gave me a good body shape for a cat sat upright, and another for just a cats head, face on. Both pictures were blown up to life size with a good guesstimate that worked first time. The full bodied cat was too big to print onto A4, so I cropped the picture into two halfs and printed each half on a seperate sheet of A4, and once again my guesswork was spot on.

Once printed, the body shapes were cut out to form a template and then drawn around onto the plastic. The body shapes were then cut out with a jigsaw. The cutouts were then fastened to long tent pegs by drilling four holes and using zip ties. By fixing the pegs now, I would have handles to hold them with when I painted them.

As my neighbour has a black cat, the birds must be wary of it prowling in my garden, so I painted all the cat cutouts black, I only had gloss so I used that. Left them to dry overnight, and then painted in the eyes, golden yellow. Both sides of the cats are painted the same.

I did plan on painting black dots in the middle of the eyes for pupils, but first I thought I would test one out. I stuck just a Version 1 on the edge of some bushes next to where a lot of sparrows have been gathering most of the time. After half an hour, nothing landed close by, or even up the garden on the veg patch, so if that's the effect of one, what will six do? plus another experimental version 1 which I plan to fix a polystyrene base to and float it in a small bucket of water dug in the ground so that wind will make it move around.

To be effective though, they have to be moved around the garden every few days when they loose their effectiveness like my previous model.
 

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