Every Winter the Birds Come Calling!
I guess that's because we (my other half and I) love to see and feed the birds during the coldest months of the year. There is something wonderful in seeing even the plain little sparrows munching on suet cakes that we have made or bought. The winter months can be tough on little birds as they need a lot of energy just to keep their tiny bodies warm.
There is one bird though, that I do not want on my balcony! I do NOT want pigeons!
Why? Pigeons are very dirty birds. They like to make their homes in high spaces! If they can find a spot out of the wind and elements, they will call that spot home! They will also chase away any of the smaller birds that I really do like having around my balcony in the winter months. So what can I do?
Well, I was checking out ways to keep the pigeons from even wanting to come onto my balcony, but the availability of food for the smaller birds is what is attracting them. So if there is no food there will be no birds and I will miss out on some really fun times watching these little critters. I need to do something else that will make the pigeons look for other lodgings.
Pigeons are spooked easily, so one method of deterring them is to hang windchimes and balloons so that there is always movement and sound happening. Hopefully they will find a quieter place to call home!
While thinking about this problem and the solutions I had an idea that would do the trick. I came across a whole stack of old CD disks that we no longer needed or wanted. Old operating systems on CD's were taking up space and were really not necessary for our computer operations. One side of the disk has a label on it and the other side has beautiful rainbow colors! So I took a dozen or so of these disks and set to work.
I drilled a hole in the disk about an inch inside the outer rim! Then just thread some wire or garden twine through the hole and leave enough string/rope to make a loop big enough to pass the disk through it. You can hang them all at the same level or vary the lengths as you please. Then take all of your strung CD's outside and hang them with the loop around a cord or light string. .
At our home we have a string of lights on our balcony because we love to sit out there evenings during the summer months! This string of lights is now lit for the holidays and it looks amazing with my hanging CD's! Just check out the short video I took! You can see the effect it has in the daytime and at night!
The sunlight plays on the discs sending light all around the balcony! It does not take much wind to make them spin and when they are spinning light beams are playing all around the balcony. I am so pleased with the outcome. They are quite pretty with their rainbow colors and they themselves are not at all noisy! Even in the windiest of days if the CD's bang around, you just hear a little clicking sound.
Evenings on the balcony are so pretty with rainbow hues being seen from all corners. I have a mirror on the one side and my lights and the disks are nicely reflected in it. It makes it seem like I have twice as many lights and CD's on the balcony! I personally love the look!
What do you need to accomplish this for yourself? A DREMEL TOOL is great for drilling the holes or you can use a regular drill with a fairly small bit (depending on the size of your cord). If you don't have lights to hang these from, you can make a line with any kind of twine and fasten it with some hooks to where ever you want these hanging. .You can also use Christmas hooks to hang these from an eaves-trough. Vary the lengths of the cords or keep them all the same, that is up to you entirely.
What I have found in just the short time that these have been up, is that the little birds are not scared of the light show, but the pigeons are not coming to roost anymore. Hopefully this will keep them away.
I checked into other methods of keeping pigeons off the balcony, but they involve either hurting the birds or making the railings uncomfortable not just for the birds but for us as well. I don't want to hurt anything, but don't want to encourage those pigeons to roost on my balcony.
I will let you know how it works, but, for right now it seems to be doing the trick! No pigeons were harmed during this trial and I suspect they won't be hurt or harmed in any other way while these are on my balcony!
Note: The author may receive a commission from purchases made using links found in this article. “As an Amazon Associate, Ebay (EPN), Esty (Awin), and/or Zazzle Affiliate, I (we) earn from qualifying purchases.”
FOLLOW US ON:
