Bye Bye Birdies

I like birds. And, I like the trim around the windows of our house. After we moved into our current home (about eight years ago) we realized that pigeons also like the trim around our windows. That's NOT good! They're very messy! We've been trying ever since to keep them off. Our most successful solution has been to hang netting (fine landscape netting that barely shows) from the eaves to just below the top of the windows (the pigeons only seem to like the tops of the windows on the second story). Other than a few times that the netting has fallen and hubby had to re-hang it, it's worked pretty well. Problem solved, right? Well...maybe not.

We recently started seeing little white balls of foam on the ground on one side of our house. At first, we had no idea what it was...


We kept seeing more and more of it and one day when I was out there I noticed a few pieces falling from the sky. I looked up and quickly realized what it was. Before we were successful in keeping the pigeons off of the trim ledges, they must have scratched off some of the stucco. Even though the pigeons can't go up there anymore because of the netting, the sparrows can and missing stucco makes it possible for them to pick into the foam underneath. They not only picked, they dug tunnels! I saw one fly out of a hole! Argh!

We had to do something and we had to do it quick! We made a trip to Lowe's and bought a really long ladder (not cheap but it's 20 feet to the eaves!), foam to fill up the tunnels and holes, a long slat of aluminum to cover the top of the trim and prevent further damage, and some spikes to keep birds off.

After lots of fiddling and adjusting of the ladder, we finally got it in a good spot, at a good angle, and hubby felt pretty safe. It's really high up there! He sprayed foam into the holes.


While it dried, he drilled holes into the aluminum slat and attached bird spikes with stainless steel wire. The aluminum will protect the top of the window and cover the holes. Attaching the spikes to the one slat also allowed him to attach all six feet at once (they come in 12" sections).


If this doesn't work, I don't know what we'll do!


He had to trim some of the spikes to make them fit around the eaves. And, it was a challenge to put it up there. It's not pretty and some of the foam and damage shows but, hopefully, it will work.


Now that we've figured out how to get the spikes onto the ledge, the other windows should be a little easier. They'll be cheaper too because we now have a big ladder. Who knew little sparrows could be destructive and expensive?! Certainly not us! We'll be working on more windows this weekend. Then, it'll be time to call the window washers!