Woodpeckers

Written by Dr. Rob Fergus

Woodpeckers can cause several kinds of problems on buildings.  In dealing with woodpeckers, a little bit of knowledge about them goes a long way.  Most important is to realize that dead or hollow trees and tree limbs are central to their habitat needs.  That is where they excavate holes for nests or to roost for the night, and where they spend a lot of time looking for insect grubs living under tree bark.  Unfortunately, in our modern neighborhoods, we tend to remove most of the dead or dying trees, so the birds are forced to look elsewhere to meet their needs.  That may mean your house, especially if it has wood siding, stucco, or soft artificial siding that they can easily hammer into.  So these birds are treating your house as a huge tree substitute.

In addition, like all native birds, woodpeckers are protected by federal law, so they cannot be killed and any nests with eggs or babies cannot be disturbed.  So we need to find a humane way to deal with them when they make your house their home too.

The challenge with most kinds of woodpecker challenges is to find a way to keep the birds from physically being able to land on your house and treat it like a giant tree.  Netting or some other physical barrier that prevents them from landing on the house is the best bet, but of course if every exterior wall of your home is a potential tree substitute for them to land on, that can be a huge challenge.  Physical remedies are always better than behavioral remedies that may try to scare the bird away, as most woodpeckers are going to be living in your neighborhood 24/7 and they may eventually determine that the things you are using to try and scare them are not really a threat.

Lets take the most typical woodpecker challenges, starting with some of the easier ones to deal with and ending up with the more difficult challenges.

Drumming—Unlike songbirds that sing to attract mates and defend their territories from each other, woodpeckers do this by drumming on hollow trees and other resonant tree limbs.  If they find a nice sounding board on your house, you may have to put up netting or another physical barrier to keep the birds away.  Often the Bird-B-Gone Woodpecker Kit is a good place to start if they are always landing and drumming on just one small area: http://www.absolutebirdcontrol.com/products/woodpecker-kit.  A mini scarecrow might also work to blast the bird away if it always lands in the same area: http://www.absolutebirdcontrol.com/products/mini-scarecrow.

Feeding—Woodpeckers hunt for insects by moving up and down on the trunks and limbs of trees and listening for the sound of the grubs moving under the bark.  Then they make small holes to dig the bugs out.  If you have lots of little holes on your home, you may have carpenter bees or some other insects infesting your house siding.  Have a pest control company check out your siding and treat it with pesticides if needed.  If there isn’t food for the woodpeckers, they will go away and hunt elsewhere. In this case, if there are bugs there, the woodpeckers are doing you a favor by letting you know! So check that out to be sure you don't have that problem.

Excavating—during the fall woodpeckers are excavating winter roost holes, so if you have a bird digging out a few larger holes in your siding or stucco, maybe that is what it is doing.  If you can put up sheet metal or some heavy aluminum foil over the area where they are pecking, that may get them to move elsewhere.  Some folks have had luck putting up a woodpecker nest box on their house over the place where the birds are making a hole--if you fill a woodpecker nest box with sawdust and hang it over the hole, maybe they will dig out the sawdust and leave your house alone.

Finding the Best Remedy—Unfortunately, there isn’t one quick fix for all woodpecker problems.  Depending on the species of woodpecker you are dealing with and what it is doing, as well as where it is doing this on your home, you may have to try several different options.  Dealing with woodpeckers is an art as much as a science.  Realize that they are your neighbors, they aren’t going anywhere, and the more you can learn about them, the better your chances of coming up with a solution that will keep them from causing you problems.  Check out the suggested resources (below), but also spend time watching your local woodpeckers and trying to figure out what they are doing.  Be creative, and you may be able to come up with a novel solution that will solve your troubles.  If you do so, we would love to hear what you come up with—it might be something we can share with others with similar problems.

Suggested Resources—check here for more ideas on how to deal with woodpeckers:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Absolute Bird Control

USDA and Cooperative Extension (http://icwdm.org/handbook/birds/bir_e139.pdf)

 

So check out these resources and see if something there would be most appropriate for your woodpecker challenges, and feel free to contact us if you have more questions about Bird-B-Gone products that might work in your specific situation.