We will be building in May and our new home should be finished in late August. We were fishing there last week and noticed the seagulls. Any hints on how to keep them out of the yard and off of our things? I don't want a big mess on everything. Our neighbor has some small posts around his property with some sort of covered wire and it seems to do the trick but it can get in the way, especially if you are fishing or mowing. We will end up using this method unless we can find a nicer looking alternative. Look closely and you can see the green wire. On the water side it isn't too bad but I am worried about the sides of the property..
No it is just a plain old wire. He has it around his dock too and not one seagull lands on it. The other neighbors docks are full of birds and full of the droppings...Maybe the birds are just scared it is electric ....all I know is that it works and gives him a yard and dock that the birds do not land on. He had talked with someone else who had it done so he used their idea. I just don't know if I want to look at that wire around everything but if I can't come up with another idea that works, we will have to. I don't want the mess from so many birds...
Wind chimes or anything else that bounces and makes noise help tremendously. You can also get raptor decoys to scare them off. Here is an interesting read on the subject. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...rent-pollution-disease-sheepdog-raptor-beach/
We don't have a seagull problem at our lake home, Sherry8, but further south I have seen what CJay mentions, the wind chimes and anything else that creates movement. Decoys are a good idea too! I would be afraid of tripping on any wire, or having a pet or animal run into it since it is the same color as the grass. Good luck on the building and congrats on your soon-to-be new home! There's nothing in the world that compares to lake shore living .
Thank you for the information CJay...interesting. We do have a wind chime, a pretty good size one which will come in handy. Living where we do now we have to take the hanging part off so it doesn't make too much noise when it is windy. I also have an owl to put out and a few other things. I am looking into wire fabric to cover the dogs run on the top. SylvieB....thank you for your input. I was worried about the same thing with my dogs when they get running and playing, might end up decapitated or a young child if they fell. It looks like the dogs won't be running except in the house because of eagles...we have a kennel where they will do their business and we plan on putting a top on it. I am not sure if they have hawks there or not. Time will tell. I will pick up some of the mylar streamers if we do put the wire on the side by the lake because I would be one that would trip on it and fall on the rocks... I am hoping you are right about lake living, it will be a whole new experience for us. The seagulls were very noisy the other day and I am hoping this is just a spring thing because we didn't see this last fall. Positively don't want droppings all over, especially from that many of them. I am wondering if I can even feed the smaller birds or if the seagulls eat seed??? I will miss that but it will save us hundreds of dollars if we have to quit. I will keep my feeders until I know for sure. I am thinking if we have finches that thistle might not be a problem but peanuts would be for the blue jays. I have read in a couple places that seagulls have taken food from a young child's hands. plus a picnic we will have to be carefull. We do have a covered porch but no screens. We wanted to wait and see if we need them because it will get in the way of our view more.
I've only encountered seagulls up in Duluth, Sherry8, and they indeed will take food out of your hands! We usually get popcorn or something nibbly from the food trucks that park on the canal walk, and they are pretty aggressive with that stuff. Are you going to be living in your new home year-round? We are generally just up here May-Oct but this year I spent the winter because I was searching for a house to buy and needed something in the interim. Being this close to nature has been an amazing experience . It sounds like you're very prepared for those annoying birds! Good luck, again!
The seagulls don't seem to be a problem anymore...I think it was mating time for them and that causes all of the noise and so many in the area. .
Ya, I was going to mention there are golf courses that "employ" dogs to chase off the geese. probably would work for any birds if you could train them to bark chase or yap at them.
Some of these birds are very large and some are regular size that I don't think an 11 pound dog and a 7 pound dog could scare away. They do bark at things so time will tell when we get to the property...we had lost our yellow lab in January and she kept all of the hawks and crows out of our yard here.
Seagulls quickly get used to anything that moves and will defy you to the last,..this side of the pond if you were to walk along a promenade with sandwich or bag of chips in hand the Gulls will swoop and steal your snack,..i hope your Gulls don't get as brazen as this.
I remember when our kids were small, we went fishing in Racine, WI. and we got a gull hooked on our line...we cut the line right away....never did catch a fish ... I will be very careful with food, especially if we have young ones visiting. I would hate to even take a chance. That's why we are thinking we won't feed the smaller birds because we don't want the larger ones hanging around. The last couple times we went to the lake only 2 seagulls were in the area that we could see.
