Do plastic owls work?

AdamZ

AdamZ

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 24, 2005
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Montgomery County PA
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Display name:
Adam Zucker
I showed up to the airport this morning to get out and do some approaches. The starlings had other plans. Found a boat load of nesting materials in the lower cowl of the bonanza. They got in through the cowl flaps as I had plug in the cowls. Its a real Pain in the keester and I'd like to prevent it in the future. I've seen those plastic owls and rubber snakes and those big yellow inflatable balls with black eyes and wonder if anyone has experience with any of them and if they work or not.
 
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We had a problem with hawks attacking people in our parking lot. Management put up some plastic owls. The hawks flew over to them to give them a closer look, and after that, ignored them.
 
I have problems with sparrows in my garage. I put up a plastic owl. I move it about 3 times a day and after week I put it inside for a couple days. I still have the sparrows, but they are really jittery.

When my health comes back I will pull all the insulation, close up the eaves and hope that fixes the bird problem.
 
No. They really don’t. Put a real owl there instead if you actually want results.
 
In our big hangar, the plastic owl provided the birds a place to perch and poop.

The pellet gun worked well, though...
 
They work just until the other critters figure out they're not moving. Big money if someone can come up with a robotic one that acts in such a way that is actually scares off animals.
 
I had a Phoebe trying to make a nest behind my front door light. Every time he'd start making a nest, I would knock it down, and he'd start building a new one. They use mud to build their nests, so it was making a big mess. I decided to get a plastic owl, and put it on the porch railing in the general vicinity of the front door. Never saw the Phoebe again.
 
I don’t know if they have them in the US, but in Europe a few years back I noticed on tops of buildings and other places a sort of hawklike bird, on a long wire that when wind blows look incredibly realistic. In fact the first few times they fooled me until I looked much closer.

Don’t know if they work or not.

Edit to add: I found a video in YouTube which shows what I’m talking about...

 
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ircphoenix said:
Plastic owls don't work worth a damn. I hear good things about CDs hanging from strings. Apparently light reflecting off of them and the movement from dangling can scare stuff off. One of the reasons there are bright little strips of silver foil tied to trees and grapevines I suppose.
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We hang CDs in our garden area as well. If they scare anything off it’s a cheap win.
 
I’ve had everything from head swiveling owls to rubber snakes trying to keep birds off my pool fence and nothing helped.
 
I use them around my cabin and it keeps the birds from crapping on the decks as much.
 
Not very well, in my experience around boats. I heard one marina had success playing recordings of injured and terrified birds. Where that audio came from, I don't know.
 
Static owls and snakes don't seem to do a damn thing. What worked for us when we had bird problems in our tie downs is the "Scare Eyes" beach ball type thing. I hung it from a loop of safety wire I looped over the rotating beacon. Given the tiniest amount of breeze it and it's little streamers move around and MOTION is very key to keeping the birds away otherwise they just get used to your deterrent.
 
They don't work for me. We put them up in our compressor buildings at work to help with the pigeons and starlings. It made no difference.
 
bflynn said:
They work just until the other critters figure out they're not moving. Big money if someone can come up with a robotic one that acts in such a way that is actually scares off animals.
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Get the Gods to bestow you Bubo

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Plastic owls keep the stupid birds away--they guarantee that all the bird sh*t on your plane will be from the smarter birds.
 
I move my moving head owl everytime I walk by it, sometimes up to 6 times a day. Like I said earlier, the sparrows are still there but they are really jittery.

Last night before I went to bed, I went in the garage and pounded on the studs and most of the birds flew out into the dark. I'll do that for the next 10 nights or so and see what happens.
 
My neighbors put one on their fence in an attempt to keep rabbits out of their garden. I came home one afternoon and hear a lot of squawking, and went around back to check it out. There was a juvenile red-tailed hawk on the fence, yelling and flapping his wings at the plastic owl. The hawk wasn't getting much of a response, which just made him more angry. The hawk popped over the owl and tried arguing from the opposite side and did this back and forth a few times until he finally gave up and flew away.
 
Walked around Lake Hood yesterday just to look at the owl perched on the top of the prop. This Cub hasn't moved in many moons and no bird poop anywhere on it. So it's settled. Plastic owls work. :)
 
Our newest neighbor has a plastic owl on top of their swing set. It's the kind that has the swivel-head, but it's missing the head. Not sure how well it works.
 
Weeell, most of them will tell you that they are 'consultants', I wouldn't really call it work. They mostly leech off their wives.
 
Many moons ago at BWI (I think it was BWI) my crew and I were outside waiting on the hotel bus when I looked up saw a seagull sitting on a fake owl taking a dump. Looking around there were a bunch more of fake owls I talked with one of the airport workers and she said the owls don't work worth a damn. Looking closely saw streaks down all of them.
 
weilke said:
Weeell, most of them will tell you that they are 'consultants', I wouldn't really call it work. They mostly leech off their wives.
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Hey! I've been consulting for 21 years, and it's paid for my plane, paid for my house, and sent two kids to university. ☺️

True, any fool can call themself a "consultant," but if you're doing it seriously, it's long hours and hard work—you have to be the operational staff, sales team, marketing team, accounting department, IT department, cleaning staff, and CEO all in one, and there's no holiday pay or sick leave—but the benefit is that you can slip out to the airport during the week when the weather's nice and it's not busy, then make up the hours later on a rainy evening.

D
 
David Megginson said:
True, any fool can call themself a "consultant,"
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sict weaks ago I kwouldent eben spelt consultant, now I are one :eek::D

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Zeldman said:
I move my moving head owl everytime I walk by it, sometimes up to 6 times a day. Like I said earlier, the sparrows are still there but they are really jittery.

Last night before I went to bed, I went in the garage and pounded on the studs and most of the birds flew out into the dark. I'll do that for the next 10 nights or so and see what happens.
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Studly. I wondered what all that noise was.
 
David Megginson said:
Hey! I've been consulting for 21 years, and it's paid for my plane, paid for my house, and sent two kids to university. ☺️

True, any fool can call themself a "consultant," but if you're doing it seriously, it's long hours and hard work—you have to be the operational staff, sales team, marketing team, accounting department, IT department, cleaning staff, and CEO all in one, and there's no holiday pay or sick leave—but the benefit is that you can slip out to the airport during the week when the weather's nice and it's not busy, then make up the hours later on a rainy evening.

D
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It's a joke. Relax.








And it's about folks who are too smart to work and claim to be consultants. It's not a joke about consultants per-se.

Most of those 'consultants' are about as useful as a plastic owl taking a dump.
 
AdamZ said:
I showed up to the airport this morning to get out and do some approaches. The starlings had other plans. Found a boat load of nesting materials in the lower cowl of the bonanza. They got in through the cowl flaps as I had plug in the cowls. Its a real Pain in the keester and I'd like to prevent it in the future. I've seen those plastic owls and rubber snakes and those big yellow inflatable balls with black eyes and wonder if anyone has experience with any of them and if they work or not.
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A hangar with good doors works really well.
 
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