Bird poo and neighbours

We all love a bit of poo, I often feel tempted to dump some over my neighbour But in this case I suspect, the neighbour's birds dump on you?

sounds like lorries feeding on the seasonal bloom of the trees?

Should pass soon enough!

Cheers Beef.

Tricky!

I've gathered the following from your post, boristhebeetle:

• your neighbour finds it more comfortable communicating in writing rather than by yarning over the fence or over a cup of tea. Face to face isn't his comfort zone. Is he socially isolated? Is there some way to make him feel more comfortable about communicating more sociably rather than via the quasi-legal method of a letter so that you can explore the issues with him? Are there common elements in your backyards (apart from the poo) that you could share in discussion? Does your neighbour have a partner with whom you can engage & who might encourage him to be more sociable?
• your neighbour isn't a nature lover & is very fastidious about his backyard. I imagine he's uncomfortable with leaves, bark & twigs from the trees, too. Is he open to looking at the beauty of the birds which I think are lorikeets (see below), birds of extraordinary beauty & colour & quintessentially Australian? Would he accept an appeal to whatever patriotism he might possess as a way of accepting the birds' presence? If this could be achieved perhaps the poo might pale into insignificance.
• for some reason your neighbour likes or pretends to like walking where the poo is deposited. He seems to be exaggerating if he says he can't avoid stepping in the poo when he walks through his yard unless, of course, he has a garden so extensive that the only pathway for him goes under the drop zone. Is there an alternative route for him to take when he wants to reach the far provinces of his garden? Rather than seeing the poo as a nuisance could he be encouraged to see it as fertilizer for his garden?Or is he just a cantankerous person who lacks an open mind & the capacity to change? Perhaps he even enjoys a dispute or two because it provides him with an interest. Have you or other neighbours had previous disputes with him? People's motivations for engaging in disputes are many & varied & it might be helpful to be able to explore what's really bugging him. It might not be bird poo at all but some other excrement in his life
• based on the screeching at dawn & dusk the birds are probably lorikeets of some species. I would guess that the trees are in flower & the nectar is attracting the lorikeets. This means that as soon as the trees stop flowering the lorikeet numbers will drop to almost zero & the drop zone will become a poo free zone until next autumn/winter when the trees flower again. Is he open to accepting the lorikeets droppings in for a limited time each year?
• lorikeets breed in tree hollows so there would be no poo to upset your neighbour while they're nesting. However, they poo copiously & juicily while they're feeding on the flowers, the time when the splatter matters to your neighbour

Lorikeets depend on native trees, particularly Eucalypts for food & breeding hollows so if you want a native bird-free yet leafy neighbourhood then the obvious solution is to get rid of the native trees & replace them with exotics. This, however, would have the disadvantage of contributing to the environmental devestation & the decrease in biodiversity under which Australia already suffers. And you would need to be careful about which exotics you planted because some of those species attract lorikeets when in flower. E.g., last Saturday in Gawler St, Mt Barker SA I was intrigued to see the plethora of lorikeets feeding in the Chinese elms which the council has planted.

Minor trimming of the tree limbs overhanging your neighbour's domain will temporarily relieve the problem in a minor way but the problem will resurface next autumn by which time will the trees have shot new branches & leaves as well as being in flower again.

Your local council may have an environmental officer &/or a neighbourhood disputes officer with whom you could discuss these issues. Or your council might be able to point you in the direction of such services.

Good luck with all that. And finally, congratulations on not being an artificial feeder of native birds. They do better if left to find their natural food sources.

Woko and Alison - congratulations on your patience                                                                                                                           

Hi BoristheBeetle,

I am happy to help solve your problem with your neighbour and also to write "poop" multiple times in a post, I just hope it works.

To send a PM, go right to the top of the web page and on the right hand side is the word Messages click on that which takes you to another page and choose "write new message"; in the "to" box, type the user/s names of the person you would like to send a message. If (for example) you type "Qy" (it does not seem to mind whether you use lower or upper case) only my username comes up in the selection box but other names may give you other choices. The rest of it is just like typing a new post. Cheers.

You're welcome boristhebeetle, although in hindsight, my personal opinions weren't all that constructive or helpful  & if it were me, then I would have to admit I would probably take the tactful route initially too.  I think other BIBY members have offered more useful advice than me & covered most issues.  The only thing I would add is that I would be concerned with lopping on their side, if it came to that, purely because if it is severe lopping and/or done incorrectly, then that may result in unbalance in the tree itself, which could naturally pose a problem to properties during, say, a storm etc.  Good luck - hope all can be resolved.

The man with the treeless paved yard has no understanding nor love of nature. Its as simple as that. There are many "cement heads" like that in the community and they don't conciliate or suddenly open up their hard-set minds to the natural world around them. We just have to put up with them. Boris is particularly unfortunate to have a cement head living next door to him. Don't take a step back Boris. Stick to what you are legally entitled to do ie grow trees in your backyard, enhance the environment and provide habitat for native birds. If the cement head wants a fight he will use any excuse; leaves and branches falling on his paving, safety hazard, root invasion, fire risk, excess shading, etc. He won't be happy until you rip out all your trees and lay paving like him.