Tip: Birds in the Hangar

[John Courte]

I should have passed this along a while back, but I just got the chance to verify it.

If you have birds that fly into your hangar and set up shop, I've found this to be a foolproof way of getting rid of them without raising the ire of law enforcement by discharging a firearm or risking a ricochet from a pellet gun into somebody's wing skin:

Get a high-power laser pointer and start chasing them around with it. It's the opposite of what happens with cats. Birds do NOT like the laser beam at all, and if you leave a door partially open so they can get out, you can chase them toward it and they'll leave. Not only that, they usually stay gone.

It's a really fun game that beats the heck out of guano removal.

Usual disclaimers: wear eye protection, don't aim the laser at eye level with others nearby, and don't point it at the collection of old mirror balls and chandeliers stored in the back corner.

[Tbone]

Thats a great tip. We have a bird that has been spending the night and doing his business on about a dozen of our helicopters during the night. I am going to take aim!!!!

[rv7boy]

Wish the local Lowe's store would try that. I was there last night and it sounded like the birds were warming up for choir practice!

[hockeypilot]

A cost effective method to stop bird from sitting on sprinler pipe is to use chicken wire. Cut strips of chicken wire with diagnoal cutters. Make the strips wide enough to wrap around the pipe with the pokey end pointing up. After I did this there was no longer bird poop on my airplane.

[NYTOM]

We kept about a thousand crows out of our work site with a green laser.
They would start coming in around sunset to roost. Couple shots with the green laser from over a quarter mile away did the trick. It was like magic.

[turbo]

i always thought a bottle rocket would do the trick if i needed to vacate a feathered friend from my hangar but this is the way to go. thanks
now all i have to do is remember this. never seen a bird in my florida hangar in 15 years.

[txaviator]

No birds in our hangars at GKY (Arlington TX Muni). We have rabbits! Yep, rabbits! They burrow out in between the runway and taxiway (I am guessing) and find a way in and run up and down through our hangars along the bottoms of the doors. Craziest thing I ever thought I'd see in my hangar.

[donaziza]

Love it. I've got Turkey vultures ( or something---huge black things) that sit on my roof and then whitewash it every day. Neighbors make fun of "You've got snow on the roof again" First thing tomorrow, I'm going to try this.

[John Courte]

I don't know if this works outside on buzzards, but that's brilliant if it does.

It works on pigeons indoors, that's for sure.

[Bill Boyd]

...but cheaper and safer.

The ground around my hangar is littered with shell hulls from the summertime game of Gunning for Starlings. Open the rear door, stand just outside at the ready, hear them start to dart around in the roof trusses, here they come... headed for daylight...

"Pull!"

Sometimes I miss, and once I bagged the corner of the tin roof doing this stuff.

I will happily try the green laser next nesting season.

-Stormy