Osprey problem

[DoubleEnder]

Every night before dusk an Osprey lands on my windex (of all things) and sits there for 1 or 2 hours. Sadly he occasionally "relieves" him/herself.

I know how to deal with birds on the spreaders etc but how can I keep them off the windex?

[Michael K]

Hmmmm, how to get that sole ass off of your Solace. Hmmmm.

[Quickstep192]

You're lucky he's only relieving himself!

I used to have them sit up there and eat fish. Apparently they can't hold onto everything and the stuff they dropped on the deck had incredible adhesive properties.

I use a "pig stick" which is basically a stick with a burgee on it. They don't like the flapping flag. You haul it up on a halyard with a downhaul to keep it vertical and so you can retrieve it.

[brak]

One of those fake owls on the masthead?

[celenoglu]

Rig a fishing line from the the tip to the top and to the back of the windex. Fishing line is too narrow forthe birds to land on. This always works.

[arf145]

Our windex, a newer one, has a stick on top to discourage squatters.

[Dirtboy]

I had the same problem. We have some huge Ospray's and Eagles here:



Those plastic owl's are so last week .............. but flying pigs; that's scary:



This has discouraged 95% of the birds and my windex hasn't needed attention since the pig took flight.

DB

[tommays]

I went with the Windex with the bird spike this year and so far so good

[capecodda]

We've had the same problem here on the Vineyard Sound side.

This method requires that you are in the neighborhood when it happens, but it seems to work. Every time you see the Osprey up there, go to the boat, shake the halyards, or whatever to get him off. Associate this with a blast of an air horn. After a few times, try the air horn only, even from a distance. Evidently Pavlov idea works on birds too.

Now the Osprey like's my buddies' boat much more than mine . Good luck, we've had ruined mast head instruments from these heavy birds.

[Boasun]

You will need to prevent that bird from building a nest also. Because if a mating pair of Ospreys build that nest, the tree huggers won't let you move that boat until the flegings have left the nest.
This happen to one sailor in Newport CA. lost his boat for a full season plus have to have his mast pulled and repaired afterwards. The powers put a tall piling next to his boat after the birds have left and move the nest over to the piling. But they didn't pay for the necessary repairs on that guy's boat.