advice needed on getting rid of noisy bird! (1 Viewer)

lauraljs · Mar 16, 2011

advice needed on how to scare away noisy bird!

I live in London and seriously need some advice on how to deter a new visitor to my street. Over the last week a bird (i'm not sure what type as I havent actually seen the damn thing) has got into a highly irritating habit of perching somewhere near my bedroom window (think it's in the tree outside my window on the street). It appears at about 3.30/4am while it is still very dark and continuously imitates various car alarm noises for several hours at a very high pitched level. It tends to disappear when it starts to get light at about 5.30/6am. It is incredibly loud and irritating and my partner and i are really loosing sleep. Does anyone have any suggestions about how to deter it from sitting near my house? I can't put the holographic tape up as it's not my tree but have thought about buying one of those inflatable owl faces to hang from my window, though not sure if it will be a waste of time... please help, it's driving me potty!

davercox · Mar 16, 2011

Laura

Not sure you're going to get much help from this forum - we are mostly on the birds' side if you get what I mean.

But I'll try :
seems to me there are only two things your "bird" can be :
1) a real car-alarm
2) a real owl.
Neither of these is going to be shut up by hanging an imitation owl up.
Sorry.

borealowl47 · Mar 16, 2011

All winter I was hoping for a noisy bird.

Apodemus · Mar 16, 2011

The best thing would be to alter your sleep/wake pattern. If you go to bed at 8.00 pm, you can have eight hours sleep, get up at 4.00 pm and listen to the whole dawn chorus! You'll be the envy of all your friends.

Thing · Mar 16, 2011

Move house?

dave123 · Mar 16, 2011

move out into the countryside, and get an assortment of bird noises at this time of morning. there might be some you like???

lauraljs · Mar 16, 2011

Ah guys you're letting me down! I'm looking for advice on birds not advice on sarcasm! I thought the whole point of this forum is for people to share their knowledge. It's not like I'm trying to find an inhumane way of getting rid of it, just some useful suggestions from people who know about bird 'psychology' as to how I can scare it away. There is a beautiful park about 300m from my house and the bird should be in the park enjoying itself not in my road- I'd be doing it a favour surely?!

In response to your helpful suggestions, yes it is definitely a bird not an actual alarm, yes i would love to move to the countryside but sadly job wont permit and finally, I'm from the countryside and know what a sodding owl sounds like!

From scouting around on the web starling and blackbirds commonly imitate alarms and my road is very well lit so I can only imagine the poor thing is deluded as to the time of day. Essentially if anyone knows how to successfully scare away starlings and or blackbirds I'd be eternally grateful.

From a sleep deprived and humourless Laura.

Adam W · Mar 16, 2011

It sounds like its a probably a Blackbird,perhaps one of the plastic decoy birds of prey might help deter it but I'm not sure there's much you can do really.

Allen S. Moore · Mar 16, 2011

lauraljs said:
Ah guys you're letting me down! I'm looking for advice on birds not advice on sarcasm! I thought the whole point of this forum is for people to share their knowledge. It's not like I'm trying to find an inhumane way of getting rid of it, just some useful suggestions from people who know about bird 'psychology' as to how I can scare it away. There is a beautiful park about 300m from my house and the bird should be in the park enjoying itself not in my road- I'd be doing it a favour surely?!

In response to your helpful suggestions, yes it is definitely a bird not an actual alarm, yes i would love to move to the countryside but sadly job wont permit and finally, I'm from the countryside and know what a sodding owl sounds like!

From scouting around on the web starling and blackbirds commonly imitate alarms and my road is very well lit so I can only imagine the poor thing is deluded as to the time of day. Essentially if anyone knows how to successfully scare away starlings and or blackbirds I'd be eternally grateful.

From a sleep deprived and humourless Laura.

Ah Laura, we may have the knowledge for advice on birds but most forum members like birds, too, and find the concept of scaring them away to be rather alien. Seriously, though, it may be that the singing bird finds the area outside your place to be either a good song post or a good territory. Scaring away your neighbourhood songster will just leave a gap for another member of the species to move in. That might have an even louder or more persistent song!

Allen

P.S. Double glazing?

Jim M. · Mar 17, 2011

lauraljs said:
Ah guys you're letting me down! I'm looking for advice on birds not advice on sarcasm! I thought the whole point of this forum is for people to share their knowledge. It's not like I'm trying to find an inhumane way of getting rid of it, just some useful suggestions from people who know about bird 'psychology' as to how I can scare it away. There is a beautiful park about 300m from my house and the bird should be in the park enjoying itself not in my road- I'd be doing it a favour surely?!

In response to your helpful suggestions, yes it is definitely a bird not an actual alarm, yes i would love to move to the countryside but sadly job wont permit and finally, I'm from the countryside and know what a sodding owl sounds like!

From scouting around on the web starling and blackbirds commonly imitate alarms and my road is very well lit so I can only imagine the poor thing is deluded as to the time of day. Essentially if anyone knows how to successfully scare away starlings and or blackbirds I'd be eternally grateful.

From a sleep deprived and humourless Laura.

It's probably a seasonal thing and shouldn't last indefinitely. In the meantime maybe earplugs would help? I recommend the silicon kind that are as pliable as putty.

Best,
Jim

bluechaffinch · Mar 17, 2011

Ah guys you're letting me down! I'm looking for advice on birds not advice on sarcasm! I thought the whole point of this forum is for people to share their knowledge. It's not like I'm trying to find an inhumane way of getting rid of it, just some useful suggestions from people who know about bird 'psychology' as to how I can scare it away. There is a beautiful park about 300m from my house and the bird should be in the park enjoying itself not in my road- I'd be doing it a favour surely?!

In response to your helpful suggestions, yes it is definitely a bird not an actual alarm, yes i would love to move to the countryside but sadly job wont permit and finally, I'm from the countryside and know what a sodding owl sounds like!

From scouting around on the web starling and blackbirds commonly imitate alarms and my road is very well lit so I can only imagine the poor thing is deluded as to the time of day. Essentially if anyone knows how to successfully scare away starlings and or blackbirds I'd be eternally grateful

It never fails to surprise me what useless advice is given on Birdforum! I'm afraid you get the whole spectrum on here, from over-earnest to downright silly and bird knowledge is equally patchy. Your annoying bird is clearly not an owl as you say, and is likley to be a starling, blackbird or song thrush - the latter two the most obvious contenders, being expert mimics. Why not give the decoy owl a go, although you may find the annoying song replaced by equally-annoying alarm calls! As others have said, the bird will probably continue like this for several months yet, at least until he has a female on eggs/chicks. So, the cheapest and most effective method would be to use earplugs - not ideal I know but it may well help your sleep pattern. Best of luck.

Zebs · Mar 17, 2011

You can see Immitation Owls on e-Bay, They don't look much but some are quite good, they move in the wind i'm told

NoSpringChicken · Mar 17, 2011

Zebs said:
You can see Immitation Owls on e-Bay, They don't look much but some are quite good, they move in the wind i'm told

They are convincing enough to have me clicking away with my camera when I saw one. Then I zoomed in to look at the results and felt very silly.

Ron

YourBirdOasis · Mar 17, 2011

I have had a number of friends ask me the same question, but with respect to Mockingbirds in southern California and I basically gave them the same advice that @bluechaffinch detailed previously. Not all of them were happy with the earplug approach and one of them was so resistant to my advice that he got out of bed every morning at about 4 am to put the hose on the bird...of course that didn't work and probably only served to waste water and shave a few years off his lifespan.

Hyrax · Mar 17, 2011

NoSpringChicken said:
They are convincing enough to have me clicking away with my camera when I saw one. Then I zoomed in to look at the results and felt very silly.

Ron

I have about 10 photos of a cardboard cut out crane on the Somerset levels, put there to attract the reintroduced Common Cranes. To be fair all that was visible was the head poking out over the vegetation. At least your owl was 3 dimensional though!

lauraljs · Mar 17, 2011

Thank you all so much for the comments, i really appreciate it. I just wish i could find it a girlfriend(/boyfriend/whichever way it is so inclined!), or teach it a tune to sing rather than an alarm noise! sadly however i dont live in a Disney film...

I think i might as well give the owl a go and invest in some decent ear plugs in the meantime.

Clive A · Mar 17, 2011

Probably a Song Thrush, we had one this morning. But hey, learn to live with it, the human mind can shut out all sorts of stuff (traffic, aeroplanes, real car alarms etc).Or enjoy the beauty of the song, and it's mimicry, you may just grow to love it.

Pixie123 · Jun 19, 2015

Help also needed

If anyone has an answer to this problem, it would save my sanity. My garden has always been a sanctuary for all sorts of birds, myself and my two lazy cats (who are too slow to catch a cold, in case your wondering!). Recently however, we have acquired a terrorist if the form of a manic blackbird. It attacks everything, my cats, all other birds, even magpies and jays. It makes this piercing 'chink,chink,chink' cry from morning till night. It doesn't even stop for breath! If I bring the cats indoors, and it happens to spy one looking out of a window, it attacks that instead! The poor souls spend most of the day hiding under the table in my dining room. I can't see a nest anywhere and there are definately no young around, so it's not protecting anything. My cats are always supervised outside, but other cats roam in and around my garden, so this crazy bird has always got something to yell at! Joking aside, it's rendering our garden unusable & I can't even have a window open because of the noise. Short of borrowing a shot gun, any ideas? And don't tell me I'm lucky to have this bird! I was lucky with sparrows, robins, jays, and blue tits, but this paranoid blackbird has seen them all off! It's just her now. And a couple of pigeons who are so daft, they haven't yet worked out what's making all the noise!

Poteidia · Jun 20, 2015

Pixie123 said:
If anyone has an answer to this problem, it would save my sanity. My garden has always been a sanctuary for all sorts of birds, myself and my two lazy cats (who are too slow to catch a cold, in case your wondering!). Recently however, we have acquired a terrorist if the form of a manic blackbird. It attacks everything, my cats, all other birds, even magpies and jays. It makes this piercing 'chink,chink,chink' cry from morning till night. It doesn't even stop for breath! If I bring the cats indoors, and it happens to spy one looking out of a window, it attacks that instead! The poor souls spend most of the day hiding under the table in my dining room. I can't see a nest anywhere and there are definately no young around, so it's not protecting anything. My cats are always supervised outside, but other cats roam in and around my garden, so this crazy bird has always got something to yell at! Joking aside, it's rendering our garden unusable & I can't even have a window open because of the noise. Short of borrowing a shot gun, any ideas? And don't tell me I'm lucky to have this bird! I was lucky with sparrows, robins, jays, and blue tits, but this paranoid blackbird has seen them all off! It's just her now. And a couple of pigeons who are so daft, they haven't yet worked out what's making all the noise!

I'm having the exact same problem! I don't think the ppl suggesting 'get earplugs' or 'change your entire way of living' (seriously, 'move'? And I go to bed/get up when I do because I have a job...) have ever had to deal with it. It's slowly driving me mad due to lack of sleep and absolutely zero peace and quiet during daylight hours. I can't sit outside and enjoy the sunshine in my own back garden because of this feathered terrorist!! I can't even sit quietly in my own living room without having all the windows shut because it's so loud and persistent!

Is there seriously nothing that can be done to move the little bugger on? Why do one bird's rights trump mine to have a peaceful summer and maintain my sanity?!

Allen S. Moore · Jun 20, 2015

Pixie123 said:
If anyone has an answer to this problem, it would save my sanity. My garden has always been a sanctuary for all sorts of birds, myself and my two lazy cats (who are too slow to catch a cold, in case your wondering!). Recently however, we have acquired a terrorist if the form of a manic blackbird. It attacks everything, my cats, all other birds, even magpies and jays. It makes this piercing 'chink,chink,chink' cry from morning till night. It doesn't even stop for breath! If I bring the cats indoors, and it happens to spy one looking out of a window, it attacks that instead! The poor souls spend most of the day hiding under the table in my dining room. I can't see a nest anywhere and there are definately no young around, so it's not protecting anything. My cats are always supervised outside, but other cats roam in and around my garden, so this crazy bird has always got something to yell at! Joking aside, it's rendering our garden unusable & I can't even have a window open because of the noise. Short of borrowing a shot gun, any ideas? And don't tell me I'm lucky to have this bird! I was lucky with sparrows, robins, jays, and blue tits, but this paranoid blackbird has seen them all off! It's just her now. And a couple of pigeons who are so daft, they haven't yet worked out what's making all the noise!

Welcome to the forum. Your black bird sounds more like a jackdaw. They are very defending of their young, which are just starting to leave the nests in this part of the World. Young birds don't have a very long survival rate, and young crows like jackdaws tend to fly off to join flocks of their own kind, which is likely to be away from where you live! Thus, you won't have the problem much longer.

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