Bird scarers

[Beemer]

Man, do I hate gas powered bird scarers! There is a nashi orchard a few hundred metres down the road and during the ripening season they use bird scarers in a feeble attempt to stop the birds attacking the fruit. It doesn't work - if they do fly away (only the ones closest to the devices), they land on the power lines and fly back again a few seconds later - so why bother?

They are allowed to operate from 7am until 8pm, seven days a week, and each device (this orchard has three) is allowed to go off three times per 'event' (not my term for it, that's for sure!) and they are allowed to have six events per device per hour - so we have at least (because they go off more often) 54 gunshots per hour for about two months.

It usually starts in December and goes until March but it didn't start this summer until yesterday so we figured they weren't going to harvest this year as last year's crop wasn't worth much - WRONG!!! It started at 11am and was still going at 9pm because the idiot who set it hadn't set it correctly, and it went off at 6am today. The orchard manager says he will sort it out, but he lives in Otaki so it takes him a while to either get up here or get someone else to sort it out.

If the damned things are still going off after 8pm tonight I'm going to turn the bloody things off! And besides, I HATE nashi!

[Motu]

When I was on Waiheke they used shot guns to scare the birds off the grape vines,but I didn't mind even though we ended up getting surrounded by vineyards,it was just the occasional shot during the day.But we had to laugh when one of the vineyard owners who built his vineyard next to the airfield complained when the model aircraft guys flew their planes up there...huh,there were doing a better job scaring the birds than his shotgun.But hey,he won an award for his wine,built a restraunt,became famous in his own mind and stopped some other people enjoying themselves.

[terbang]

I see at Rotorua Airport they use small kites shaped like a Falocon or hawk on a short tether up a pole which resemble the movement of a bird of prey. They also have false (plastic I guess) owls tha just sit beside the runway. Dunno how good they are as they have a problem with black swans there which don't mix too well with jet engines..

[WINJA]

my uncle used to shoot a few birds and tie them to the fence to warn off the other birds

[zadok]

I have a roo scarer on my bike! Emits a high frequency whistle as you ride along to scare any wildlife. I'm hoping that it works.

[Colapop]

best thing in a vineyard is cats... They keep down the current population and future populations. It's just the cats don't like having to run up and down on strings all day!

[Jackrat]

Go down there one night an nick the lot of em'.Run em' over a few times with your car,tractor,bus,truck or what have you,then put em' back.
Failing that, get some 245T,,,,,,
Not that you would do anything like that,
your being so pure,innocent an all.
Actualy I'm shocked that somebody as perfect as you would come whinging in a place like this.People have even been known to use bad language here,,better just cover your ears

[Ixion]

My understanding is that teh bird scarers are pretty ineffectual since the birds (smart little bastidges they are, too) soon figure out that, although it makes a racket, none of their mates seem to get hurt. So. must be harmless, 'eh. So, seriously, why don't the farmers breed up a few hawks ? 3 or 4 of THOSE flying around and the birds will be off all right.

[froggyfrenchman]

Failing that, get some 245T,,,,,,

Durastic measures!

[Jackrat]

My understanding is that teh bird scarers are pretty ineffectual since the birds (smart little bastidges they are, too) soon figure out that, although it makes a racket, none of their mates seem to get hurt. So. must be harmless, 'eh. So, seriously, why don't the farmers breed up a few hawks ? 3 or 4 of THOSE flying around and the birds will be off all right.

Ever seen what a family of Magpies do to a hawk.
Not many birds at all give a darn about our Australasian Marsh harrier and the other possible bird would be the Native Falcon which is so rare that most Kiwi's will never see one.
The falcon is endangered because of farmers using stuff like DDT & 245D in the first place.They created the imbalance they themselfs have to live with today,,,neat aye
Hey you said serious remember.

[Jackrat]

Durastic measures!

A poor joke and a poke at somebody I don't like.
You had to be there.

[Motu]

Yeah,for all it's imposing looks the harrier is a timid bird,I've seen even myna's deal to them,let alone magpies.They lived in the raupo swamp down from us and cruised the tree tops in our back yard,but never went near the cliffs where the seaguls were.One day walking in thick mist one came out and floated by my shoulder,a good moment....I like them anyway...even if they couldn't scare a budgie.

[TraD_MaN]

i did it full time for a month and a bit last year, best job ever! got like 40-50 starlings a day over that time

those bangers do jack... the bike scares them better becuase they know the fella on the bike has a gun

[Beemer]

The orchard is owned by a guy in Wellington (and as he doesn't live there, he doesn't care if they go off outside the regulated hours) who has a manager in charge. He in turn has another manager who obviously doesn't know what the hell he's doing when it comes to setting these devices! It was still going off at 8.15pm tonight so I rang the manager but just got his answerphone - same with his mobile. So he got two messages in a not very quiet tone, telling him the bloody things were going off outside the allowed hours and we were going over to turn them off, plus I would be making a complaint to the council on Monday and if he didn't get this sorted out I'd be having them shut off for good! (I felt sorry for the friend who rang immediately after I hung up, had to apologise for being so abrupt when I answered the phone - I thought it was him ringing back!)

The stupid thing is, the guy who owns the orchard has admitted the bird scarers only work for the first day each year, then the starlings get used to them and don't even bother to fly away unless they are really close to the devices. They are powered by gas bottles (like a BBQ) so we just go over now and turn the valves off. End of problem. However, if he has got my message and come up and reset them and they DO go off again at 6am, he will be getting a call at that time - today I was polite and waited until 8.30am but he wasn't home so I had to leave a message with his daughter.

We have at least two hawks that fly over our place on a regular basis but they don't seem to worry about the starlings, not when there are rabbits and ducklings to attack. And we have heaps of magpies so they give them a run for their money if they get too close to their nests. Our cat goes over there too, but he's only interested in rabbits or gold finches - in fact I've never seen him kill a starling - maybe they don't taste so good?

I just wish that some horrible nashi blight would be introduced to NZ and wipe out his whole crop! Last year he moaned it was hardly worth harvesting them as the prices were so low, which is why we thought he hadn't bothered this year. I bet they're not even flammable either...

Oh, and Jackrat, if YOU wanted to come down and do something like that, I would make sure no one took down your rego number!

Winja's idea is a good one, the only trouble is the orchard is surrounded by a shelter belt of trees that have been formed into a hedge about 30-40 feet tall so the birds probably wouldn't notice the dead ones.

Poison wouldn't be an option either, as I don't think it is just the starlings that eat the fruit (if they actually DO eat it!) and we have all kinds of birds out here, native and otherwise. Then our cats would eat the dead ones and they'd die or get sick, so we'd have an even bigger problem!

[Jackrat]

Not many people would be silly enough to take my comments seriously,but I guess there's always one or two huh.
Do the obvious and call noise control,EVERY time they go off outside hours.
They "NC" will soon get sick of it and confiscate the things.
Their not only there to ruin my partys you know.