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In this Discussion
- 37 Terraplane#2 January 2010
- 46HudsonPU January 2010
- bent metal January 2010
- Browniepetersen January 2010
- Clutch guy January 2010
- MikeWA January 2010
- mrsbojigger January 2010
- ralpie January 2010
- RL Chilton January 2010
- Tom Drew January 2010
- Uncle Josh January 2010
- WildWasp January 2010
Winter 'Visitors' -
-
Nothing pertaining to Hudsons, unless we are talking about animals and creatures that hang around the garage, workshop and sheds...
Winter 'visitors' have taken up residence -
Yup - vultures! These pictures were taken today, at the same time... They're on the ground, my sheds, and in the trees. It is hard to make them out the photos I have of them roosting in the trees, so no photos of that area are posted.
We first noticed a few of these birds 'hanging around' (overnight roosting) in our evergreen trees about 8-9 years ago, but at that time there were only a few, 3-5 vultures. The population has grown every year since then, and is now around 100 or so.
We even have one that is 'disabled' - a bad wing, but manages to get around alright. It has been seen since last March, so probably lives adequately off of what it can get without flying. Last winter animal control tried to catch it, but was unable to do so and quit after about 10 minutes. It can get up into the lower branches of trees and out of the way of other animals, which is probably the reason why it is still around.
Today it is a bit windy, so they've moved down to the ground and the roofs of my shed, however none on the roof of my house.
- Yes, they 'poop' considerably;
- Yes, they do considerable damage to my evergreen trees;
- No, neither Animal Control nor Natural Resources will do anything about it
;
My wife is afraid that they will get hungry and go after our dog (a little 9lb mix), but although they show an interest, they tend to avoid any contact. We keep her on a leash, and Little Lily is smart enough not to get close, but does growl and bark a bit. Vultures usually don't bother with anything still 'moving' anyway...
Can't really 'bother' them too much -
- Wife won't let me (of course, 'party pooper'
);
- Animal Control & Natural Resources say I cannot do anything to possibly harm or injure them (i.e., no pellet or BB gun - maybe a paintball gun?). Their recomendation is that I could/should use an 'air horn' to drive them away - but they roost at night, and I have a LOT of neighbors who would not appreciate the noise throughout the night (horn blasts every 10-20 minutes, all night long for a couple of weeks).
I also have 4-6 cats hanging around the sheds as well - I think they have taken up residence in my '39 Hudson pickup truck.
The birds will be gone in April or so, and return again in Oct/Nov... -
Rick , don't know if it'l work on the buzzards . I had a problem with Starlings . I used an electric ooga horn that used to be hooked up as an outdoor signal that the phone was ringing . Starlings come in to roost at sundown by the hundred , 3-4 days blasting them about the time they hit the trees cured it . Hit the horn, they took off, come back , hit it again . After a half dozen or so hits and they would'nt come back . No all night racket . BUD
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When I would travel to Florida for work there would be a lot of the "visitors" at Kennedy Space Flight Center. They were a real pain, and naturally, the government would not do anything about them. When it was time to fly one of the Space Shuttles, workmen would drive along the roadway are fire shotgun's with the lead removed from the shells. They killed a few with the "wads" so they even gave that up. Made me feal a bit like I was in a Hitchcock movie.Brownie
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Grackles are the culprit in my area. They come in flocks of 600 plus and sit in all the trees, power lines. Make noise all nite and make a mess that eats paint. They are protected so they can not be shot ... the blasts at the local parking lots and horns at the banks do nothing ... they have gotten used to these so the humans take the brunt of the worthless methods of shooing the birds. As far as Vultures go... we got lots ... the vulture is actually a rapor and will attack small animals. We have several that invade the neighborhood occassionally. I have seen them kill and eat squirrels. Neighbor swears they killed her cat.
When the natural predators are squeezed out these things happen. -
You mean there really IS a bird called a "grackle"? My dad's generic name for any bird he didn't recognize was "yellow-bellied grackle" (or sometimes "pied-billed grackle" if it obviously didn't have a yellow belly). Us kids just assumed he made it up! Learn something new everyday. . .
Rick, sometimes opportunity is clothed as adversity. The presence of those buzzards is just so you'll be able to keep your New Years resolution to get more exercise and be more active. You don't want to just lay around when buzzards are in the area. Don't ask me how I know.:eek: -
SKUNKS!
Couple of skunks liked my workshop as much as I did. I was afraid of going in there when they were in there. I didn't want to shoo them out for fear of getting sprayed. I got rid of them by cranking up my stereo and playing "Yello" and Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy". The whole building was shaking! They certainly didn't like my kind of music but Hey! It was either them or me.
Peace,
Chazwww.themodernartist.com -
mrsbojigger wrote:
----Wouldn't work for me , ain't got no music a skunk wouldn't listen to . HEEEHAAAWSKUNKS!
Couple of skunks liked my workshop as much as I did. I was afraid of going in there when they were in there. I didn't want to shoo them out for fear of getting sprayed. I got rid of them by cranking up my stereo and playing "Yello" and Emerson Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy". The whole building was shaking! They certainly didn't like my kind of music but Hey! I was either them or me.
Peace,
Chaz -
Rick, looks like alot of the people that were just in Copenhaven!!
-
Mike (WA) wrote:You mean there really IS a bird called a "grackle"? My dad's generic name for any bird he didn't recognize was "yellow-bellied grackle" (or sometimes "pied-billed grackle" if it obviously didn't have a yellow belly). Us kids just assumed he made it up! Learn something new everyday. . .
Rick, sometimes opportunity is clothed as adversity. The presence of those buzzards is just so you'll be able to keep your New Years resolution to get more exercise and be more active. You don't want to just lay around when buzzards are in the area. Don't ask me how I know.:eek:
Yep, really are Grackles (like a small raven). Personally, I hate 'em.
Rats with wings, if you ask me. I guess they protect them around Ken's area, but we shoot 'em down here. There's still bazillions of them.
Rick, shoot the vultures from your windows! -
Out where I am a group of wild life like that would draw a crowd. I'd put up a four foot fence and charge admission for people to come and see um'.:eek:
:rolleyes:hmm...Maybe a refreshment stand by the garage there, some buzzard T-shirts,....you could make a fortune!
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Sorry Russell, but shooting them isn't an option - 200 or so townhouses across the street, and another 120 or so about 100' to the north of the trees...
BM - Don't think anyone will pay to be 'crapped on' - Then again, who knows? These birds make one BIG mess, and do a lot of damage to these trees. I probably should take some pictures, so you can see what is going-on just outside of my workshop...
Here are some pictures of the areas below where they've decided to roost -
Sometimes when there is some wind they like to roost a bit low - you can see where they've torn up my tarp - they have some serious claws... What looks a bit 'lighter' in color is their poop, which is an off-white... Poop and branches everywhere...
Just about anything that looks a bit off-white is their feces...
Two, three or more on a branch is an extra 30-50 lbs or more, and many, many branches have broken off under their weight. On top of that, they 'trim' their roost area for easier access, which is why there are so many smaller branches on the ground -
Hard to see in the photo, but the ground is pretty-much saturated with their feces... -
bent metal wrote:Out where I am a group of wild life like that would draw a crowd. I'd put up a four foot fence and charge admission for people to come and see um'.:eek:
:rolleyes:hmm...Maybe a refreshment stand by the garage there, some buzzard T-shirts,....you could make a fortune!
HEY YEAH !! fry up few BUBBA'S BUZZARD BURGERS and maybe some CARTERS BILLY BEER !!
Seriously , looks to me like you have a health hazard on your hands and should have a right to protect your family . Might try your family doc and the health dept. for some support and with they're backing maybe the local court for an order to have the right to possien the dang things by feeding them . -
37 Terraplane#2 wrote:
HEY YEAH !! fry up few BUBBA'S BUZZARD BURGERS and maybe some CARTERS BILLY BEER !!
Seriously , looks to me like you have a health hazard on your hands and should have a right to protect your family . Might try your family doc and the health dept. for some support and with they're backing maybe the local court for an order to have the right to possien the dang things by feeding them .
Can't shoot 'em, huh? O.k., get out the slingshot and feed 'em Alka-Seltzer! LOL!
Sorry, Rick, couldn't resist. What a mess! I'd do as Bud said, and start calling some people, including the local law to find out what you CAN do. Just the time it takes to clean up after them, is time away from what you WANT to be doing. -
Also, if you can't shoot them, due to neighbor proximity, you can always get underneath the tree and pick them off with a pellet gun. I didn't mean you should be blasting them with a shotgun from the kitchen window!
-
RL Chilton wrote:
I actually HAVE a nice slingshot, made for slinging paintballs... I actually used it last winter to keep the buzzards off of my sheds - I got 2-3 large bags of peanut M&Ms as a gift (I am a diabetic), so put them to a somewhat unconventional use! :rolleyes:Can't shoot 'em, huh? O.k., get out the slingshot and feed 'em Alka-Seltzer! LOL!
Sorry, Rick, couldn't resist. What a mess! I'd do as Bud said, and start calling some people, including the local law to find out what you CAN do. Just the time it takes to clean up after them, is time away from what you WANT to be doing.
My wife put a stop to that, but I wasn't hitting anything anyway - a slingshot is only good for about 50-75 feet, and they're about 50 feet up in the air anyway...
Took another truckload of limbs, branches, etc., to the landfill on Tuesday (they grind it into mulch) - 3rd trip this month. I won't bother picking up anything under the trees, at least until they've gone in the Spring, just raked-up the majority of branches around my work area, and the larger branches that had fallen - to make the place look a bit more presentable. A bit of a 'crap shoot' so to speak, having to dodge falling globs of buzzard feces...
Anyone got an old air-horn, similiar to that we used to see on the larger trucks with air brakes (with the horn 'valve')? Am unemployed, so can't afford much - just want to try running something like this from my shop compressor, and see if the noise will drive them away... -
RL Chilton wrote:
DNR said 'no' to BB or pellet guns -"They might harm or injure the birds!"...Also, if you can't shoot them, due to neighbor proximity, you can always get underneath the tree and pick them off with a pellet gun. I didn't mean you should be blasting them with a shotgun from the kitchen window!
Well, as long as I am discrete about it, how would they know? Problem is, with all the townhomes (and eyes) all around me, SOMEONE is bound to complain that I was 'shooting the poor birds'. (this from folks that couldn't hit a trash can with their empties (burp) if their LIVES depended on it!)... -
I agree- the pellet/BB gun solution isn't going to do much good on that large a bird anyhow, and surely you will get turned in by someone. And you will be in "shock and awe" at the size of the fine!
Orchardists use a propane gizmo to make cannon-like noise in orchards- that's not going to be popular in your neighborhood, but might be worth looking into. -
There is a wealth of information on the Internet about these birds. This includes articles which begin to appear in the early 2000s concerning the roosting of vultures in Rick's area. One site which does a good job of describing them is:
http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Cathartes_aura.html -
After reading the above thread, it seems their sense of smell is unusually acute. If one could determine a scent that would bother them, that might be worth trying.
Also, I know some office buildings in our area have had problems with canada geese flying into the windows and killing themselves. They now use recordings of distressed geese played periodically through loudspeakers to keep the geese away and it apparently has worked quite well.
Tom -
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Tom Drew wrote:
Pretty much what I've come to learn, over the past few years. Each year I 'fuss' about the mess they make, and forget about it when the leave in the Spring.
The wife says 'leave them alone, it is part of nature', so... :rolleyes: -
Get a bag of round dog food, a 2 ft piece of pipe that fits it, your compressed air hose from the garage, and see if they can catch 'em. Maybe they're hungry.
