can anybody help us to "frighten away" an Australian Raven which has been attacking our house for over 2 years now. He(I presume!) flies at the windows (both north and south facing) and hits it with his beak. I realise its probably a territorial thing but we have tried putting up pictures of cats etc to frighten him off, but it doesnt work. I wouldnt usually be concerned but it is damaging our paintwork!
I dont want him to go away, just need him to stop hitting the windows, so any advice would be much appreciated.
Birds often attack windows or mirrors because they see their reflection and think it is another bird. At my place fairy wrens and shrike thrushes will attack wing mirrors on cars and sometimes windows.I left a shiny 20L steel pot on my verandah and a wren spent hours pecking at it, we were wondering what the pinging noise was.
Maybe if you hang mossie net or some other barrier in front of the windows for a while to reduce the reflection?
Try covering the windows from the outside maybe? But you probably don't want to lose the light, apparently eventually if it should stop but if it's been going at it for 2 years, I dunno then...
Thanks guys for your suggestions, I will try to cover the windows at the rear to reduce the reflection, there's a lot of window! Unfortunately its impossible at the front because its a 2 storey feature window so there is no way to open it or fix something. I will keep you posted on my success.
Thought you might like to know the bird in question is one of a pair. They arrive early in the morning and the male appears to seek us out, by looking in various windows. He will soon fly away when we move towards the window. even our friends think its odd, like he's stalking us!
thanks again for your suggestions
I've noticed magpies can see people moving around inside a house through glass, crows would be the same. Do you feed the birds? They may be asking for food, I wonder if someone else in the neighbourhood is feeding them and they are trying to "shake you down" for a feed. Crows are very intelligent, they could also be holding a grudge over some incident in the past.
Thanks Greg. That is interesting, it had occurred to me that it could be a grudge, I dont know why or what, but I just got that sense from the way the bird was acting and how he would respond to me. So I stopped fussing about it and chasing him away.
We also put a big rubber snake on the deck next to the window and, can you believe it, he has stopped hitting the window! Fingers crossed! he is still around, but he acts in an entirely different way now.
Now my other problem is ducks in the pool. I do like them around but they make a terrible mess and we are using so many chemicals in the pool because of their poo. I bought a Hawk scarer, which is essentially a plastic hawk which we had to suspend on a wire across the pool as high as possible but the ducks just ignore it! Any other ideas folks!
Hi sandbank. Your dilemma seems to be one that's commonly faced by those who enjoy wildlife at their homes & also like the accoutrements of modern Australian life. Sometimes creative accommodations can be made so that both can be enjoyed. Other times the creativity isn't there or it's just not possible to have both without considerable angst.
I sense that you're not all that comfortable about pouring chemicals into a pool in order to deal with the consequences of duck deedoo. If you're unable to deduck your pool then you may be faced with the question of how valuable is your pool to you? Would you be better off doing something different with the space? If you like having native birds around could you take out the pool & replace it with native plants to attract wildlife? At least you would send the ducks packing by taking away their preferred habitat. But then if you've only recently put in the pool you have the dismay & disappointment of not having had any benefit from something which cost a lot of money.
Sometimes people use decoys to deter wildlife from visiting them. In the case of the raven I wondered if setting up a mirror somewhere on your property might have been a solution but you seem to have solved this problem by using a snake. Decoys for ducks? Hmmmm. Is there a body of water nearby which would attract the ducks if the habitat there was more to their liking? You didn't say what species of ducks are frequenting your pool but if they're a native species then improving the habitat for them at a local lake might give them a preferred environment. Many lakes have lawns rather than acquatic & riparian vegetation around them so replacing a significant part of the lawn with the native vegetation that would naturally grow lakeside would be likely to attract ducks.
That's the best I can do at this stage, sandbank, but other posters probably have other ideas.
A pool blanket on a roller would keep the ducks out, also reduce evaporation and the need for chemicals, as well as extend your swimming season (unless you live in the tropics where a pool blanket would make the pool too hot).
I have a pair of White-browed Scrub Wrens, and a male Fairy Wren play with all the shiny parts of my car and the windows of the house. Then my son had this idea of putting a few mirrors up, away from the house. This works well, they leave my car alone , and use the mirrors now. At times still turn up at the house, but a lot less often.
M-L
GregL, I discussed this problem with Ms Woko. Cutting quickly to the chase she also suggested a cover for the pool. Of course, this won't result in the rehabilitation of the nearest lake/wetland!
We live on the coast close to Pittwater, north Sydney, so I guess fresh water is the issue here (my pool is certainly not very fresh anymore! )
thanks for all your suggestions and help.