I thought my bird issue was solved earlier this spring when I accidentally hit a bird with my Swiffer duster while it was trying to build a nest on my back patio post. I was wrong.
At the beginning of June, I opened the blinds and saw my little bird friends were busy again. Luckily, once again I caught them immediately.
I brushed down the little bit of grass and mud there and hoped it would be enough to remind them of what happened earlier in the year.
Spoiler alert: It wasn't.
Unwilling to waste the kind of time it took in the spring to deal with this little construction team, I pulled out the heavy artillery. Plastic spikes.
I bought these in the spring, but I didn't need to use them after I accidentally Swiffered a bird. I had thick, double-sided tape that I planned to use to attach them to the top of the post.
First, let me say those spike freaking hurt! I managed to stab my fingers and hands several times and dropped one that I caught upside down on my thigh. Ouch! Unfortunately, this required a trip up on the ladder, something I hate because I have this thing about heights, but I was able to mostly reach from two-rungs up.
The tape didn't really stick, but I put them up on both posts anyway and hoped for the best.
When I looked out the window later and saw one of the birds sitting atop those darn spikes, I was like, crap, they're going to build a nest on top of the damn things and now Swiffering is going to be a pain in the butt because it'll knock the spikes down.
But I was overly pessimistic. As it turned out, I watched the birds show up with more nesting material, hover, looking at the spikes, and then give up.
There was an initial attempt to put the nest on the cross wood, but that was maybe an inch wide and they were unable to balance the material on such a narrow piece of wood. They moved on.
Bird spikes for the win!
