Will a plastic owl keep squirrels and birds away?

Only the plastic ones.

Squirrels and rabbits take a day or two to figure out it's not real and then ignore it. It works pretty well with birds, though.

It works for a while, but once the birds get used to it they just poop on it and make fun of it.

No, but this will. The moving eyes scare the shit out of squirrels and birds. NASA even used it.

When I set out a plastic owl the birds and critters apparently thought it was hilarious. I had better luck with a plastic snake; it spooked them. %0D %0D You can also buy a mechanical owl that moves its head and - I think - hoots from time to time. More expensive, of course.

What if you move the owl around--they still pick up that it is fake?%0D %0D Thanks.

Video of NASA using "terror eyes" to keep pigeons away.

A plastic owl will also keep away any friends or family with an ounce of taste.

You need an entire vignette which includes squirrels on the tree trunk, plastic Bambie, and a gnome family. A chicken with ceramic chicks following behind completes the look.

Don't forget the pink flamingoes.%0D

Make one yourself out of tempera paint, old panty hose and seeds.

It works better if you can send the owl out on patrol in some kind of motorized cart. A model train can work if you attach the owl securely enough, and if the curves aren't too sharp.

Daniel Bexton could help you, OP.

That thing at R7 scares me.

The most effective plastic owl will have a blinking light and smell of alligator urine. Paint owl a different color every few days. Familiarize yourself with unpleasant color combinations and fugue-inducing patterns. Flap your arms wildly when placing the owl and on each subsequent visit.

Have you thought about dressing up as an owl, in your own hand sewn costume of course, and patrolling the yard? There are websites which can teach you owl calls.

[quote] Will a plastic owl keep squirrels and birds away? Away from what?

NO! We have two plastic owls with bobble heads. Even when we move them around every day the other birds seek them out just to shit on them.

Rub apple butter on your body and roll around in the grass.

R18 Do they blink and smell of alligator urine?

Plastic owls work best if you put them on the end of a rope so you can swing them and attempt to hit the offending wildlife. That seems to scare birds and squirrels quite a bit. Also, it works on coyotes and small children.

Have you thought about getting a komodo dragon?

I don't know but there adorable. Yes, I find them adorable, I always wanted one.

What are you trying to protect from the birds and squirrels, OP?

Your trees?

He's trying to protect them from themselves.

Why not use one of your old caftans and a turban to make a scarecrow, OP? That would frighten off most sentient creatures.

Try this, OP:

Muggles, R17.

I'm buying 1 of those terror eye things to put on the top of my roof.

Hopefully, it will keep those mocking bird fuckers out of the big Oak in my yard.

Mockingbirds sing at night. Unless there's a bright moon, the holographic eyes won't work in the dark.

I don't know about squirrels or birds, but it will stop Kim Basinger dead and her tracks and she freezes, sometimes for hours.

I put out my little figurine of Olivia. Works like a charm.

A pair of nunchucks, a breast pump, and a biography of Rick Moranis.

Will the plastic owls scare my plastic flamingos?

During its first full moon, your plastic owl will turn into a real owl, and everything that touches it or passes through its field of vision will turn into plastic. The owl cannot breathe or move around in plastic, so its experience as a living bird is brief and probably horrible.

Nobody knows why this happens.

Those little fuckers "sing" during the afternoon, at midnight, 4 at night, 7 in the morning...

They never shut the fuck up. It's 3 months of audible hell.

My parents have a next-door neighbor with a barn/shed in her back yard that used to be a favorite roosting place for nasty-ass pigeons and grackels, which irritated anyone who was feeding songbirds on the street.

Two plastic owls, one on each end of the barn roof, seem to have worked pretty well. Grackels are still around, but they don't congregate on the barn like they used to. Pigeons have almost completely stopped coming by. Maybe they are especially stupid.

R36, how many times do we have to post the datalounge mockingbird relief formula? Get one cheap drugstore fan. Plug in in front of bedroom window or on bedside table, facing fan away from you. Turn on fan. The sound of the fan motor drowns out the mockingbird. Use more than one fan if needed, one at window, one at bedside. It should be no problem, as we are talking cheap fans.

Fuck that....

I'm scaring the little fuckers away. I'm not putting a fan in every 1 of my rooms.

This owl won't scare them away, but he certainly will make them happy.

Put this on a permanent loop in your yard.

OP? Buy a BB gun -- seriously.%0D %0D %0D Pigeons used to roost on my back porch and shit on it like crazy. So I bought a handgun-shaped air-powered BB gun, anticipating many happy hours of using them for target practice.%0D %0D %0D But only one day -- ONE DAY -- of shooting at the little fuckers, and they went away and never came back. I'm thinkin' they told their friends as well. Later, I gave the BB gun away.%0D %0D %0D Just sayin'.%0D %0D %0D

As a fat owl would I be useful on mice patrol?

The caws are coming from inside the nest!

[quote]It works better if you can send the owl out on patrol in some kind of motorized cart. A model train can work if you attach the owl securely enough, and if the curves aren't too sharp.%0D %0D R12, Juuuuuu Craaaadzzzzzyyyyy

I have a mannequin in my basement that I'm going to dress up as the Virgin Mary and put it in my back yard. I wish I could figure out a way to rig it so it would cry blood...shoo...

JohnEric, if you think of it as a water fountain with red-colored water...this could work!%0D %0D One of the submersible water fountain pumps, some hose (water, not panty), a basin for the statue to stand in and catch the water, some electricity to run the pump...yes!%0D %0D If I were there, I'd help you. This could be awesome!

i use my kids diaper with pee to keep squirrels away from my tomatos

I use a blow up snake and move it every other day or so. The birds scream at it from a safe distance but they don't come close.

I have also used discarded CD/DVD discs strung up on fishing line. The flash does scare the birds away. I know it looks real trailer trash but the flashes are scary to squirrels and birds.

I also buy plastic Xmas apples on a string and put gooey inssect killer stuff on them and that takes care of a lot of insect vermin.

I am a true killer when it comes to anything that will harm my crops.

Today two turkey vultures were doing the old mating thing and I think I may have them and their family around this spring and summer. I am really happy. Had a hawk family once and had so much fun watching them.

This thread is full of so much psychosis, it isn't even funny.

What about Racoons? My friend has a family living under his deck and causing a ruckus at night.

The owls worked for us. We had crows that kept pooping on our outdoor furniture. The day we put out those owls, the crows stayed away and haven't been back.

One falcon spent an hour screaming at the owl, but eventually moved on as well.

switch its perch regularly

Plastic owls are very effective at keeping plastic squirrels away.

The moving Owls work wonders, or make sure that the Owl is on a swinging branch.

R49, turkey vultures are fascinating (though ugly), but they only eat carrion. They're not predators like the falcons, so their presence won't deter other critters (who all seem well versed in natural history).

I used to work in a government building that was plagued by pigeons roosting on the window ledges with poop flowing down the walls. So the maintenance dept installed plastic owls on each corner ledge. Next day, more pigeons than usual showed up to roost & the early birds got the corner seats, where they snuggled up right next to the owls, some of them even putting their heads on the owls' shoulders (so cute!). Your tax dollars at work!

My friend read that shiny, moving and spinning thins as well as a bowl with booze would keep the pigeons away from her balcony. She put up several silver glittery pom-poms that rustled around, several brightly coloured pinwheels and a bowl with amaretto. Did they leave? No because she had created a freakin pigeon disco!!

Christ, this explains the enormous (18 inch tall) hideous plastic owl I found in my parents basement when I was cleaning their house up. Both were quite old and couldn't remember procuring it. It scared the shit out of me when I opened the cupboard it was in. I could see the effect would wear off very quickly.

My parent's neighborhood went through a craze of putting water-filled plastic milk jugs out on lawns as a means of keeping dogs from pooping on them. How or why people thought this worked...

You know what will work? Set your house on fire.

What? You're saying 'but where am I going to live?'? Really, do I have to figure out EVERYTHING for you?

They don't work.

Most birds can detect ultraviolet light, polarized light, and even magnetic fields. Their vision is really remarkable. Birds will quickly realize the plastic thingy isn't a real bird and will ignore it. They might be scared at first but only because it's a new object in their environment.

BTW, birds' feathers reflect UV especially well and in unique patterns. So, while all the bird of a particular species might look pretty much alike to us, birds use their UV vision to recognize each other. To other birds, each bird is just as unique as other people are to us.

The US Postal Service spent thousands of dollars putting up plastic owls at the Hillcrest station in San Diego. It didn't work. Now the pigeons have another place to make their nests, right behind the owls, within the corners of the building.

Costume suggestion.

[quote]I used to work in a government building that was plagued by pigeons roosting on the window ledges with poop flowing down the walls. So the maintenance dept installed plastic owls on each corner ledge. Next day, more pigeons than usual showed up to roost & the early birds got the corner seats, where they snuggled up right next to the owls, some of them even putting their heads on the owls' shoulders (so cute!). Your tax dollars at work!

That.is.hilarious!

Best thread ever!!

Blast from the past! This thread came up on google when I searched for plastic owl keep birds away.

I need to keep owls and hawks off my roof to stop the pooping on my deck. The hawks man it during the day and the owls land with a loud thump about 2a.m. I have all these furry turds on my deck and have found a half-eaten snake there too.

At first I was all nature lover about it, but now it's just messy and disgusting. I'm thinking the Terror Eyes might work! Anyone ever have success since this thread started?

If you armed the plastic owls with plastic guns that shoot rubber bullets, I think it would work.

Crows have taken all the pebbles I put on hubby's grave only three weeks ago.. It's a big double grave .. Black pebble stones. None left . I'm going to replace.. But wondering how I will deter the pesky birds. Your replies are so funny!!!! Any other ideas.. Might get a spray!!

r67 Two words: electrified chicken wire

[quote]As a fat owl would I be useful on mice patrol? by: Owleen Eaglefeather

ROFLMAO!

Will it keep the ferret out of the dishwasher?

Try the Courtney Stodden blow up doll! Even I would not dare myself near that. At least not without a magnetic shield and lots of penicillin...

Get a load of R60 aka Mrs. Grundy, with her smart beret, sitting on her barstool at the Tides Cafe in Bodega Bay.

"I don't know about their brain pans, madame, but these birds ATTACKED!"

Owls do not work. I bought one at home depot to keep the starlings from crapping all over and in my pool and they land right in front of it and crap anyway. waste of money.

set something up that attracts bird, shot one, leave it there, let the other birds know whats up

terroreyes are confidential and shoudnt be veewd except under utmost confidents. forget uve seen it.

I agree with a couple of the posters. You need to get yourself a gun!

[quote] My parent's neighborhood went through a craze of putting water-filled plastic milk jugs out on lawns as a means of keeping dogs from pooping on them. How or why people thought this worked...

That is the weirdest, stupidest thing I've read all day.

How/why the fuck would that work?!?!?

Unless you shot one of the water jugs, while a dog was right beside it...

Holy crap, this thread is still open!

Now THIS, dear children, is what DL used to be like -- hilarity with every post!

My stomach hurts from laughing.

One thing's for sure, plastic owls won't deliver the mail! (I tried them)

Bump

I used to have a pigeon problem they would land on my terrace and crap on it to mark their territory. A friend who works for the NYC dept of buildings told me that birds and animals don't like human smells. I put Renuzit air fresheners on my terrace to keep pigeons away. Works great but you have to replace them every 2-3 weeks.

Who?

Why not get a real owl?

It works for exactly 24 hours, then they start sitting on it.

Get the little boy from the Korean BBC TV show in that motorized chair and have him zip around the yard.

That'll scare everyone.

Is op, Donald Trump or Paul Ryan?

Why anyone would want to keep squirrels away is the real question.