Wednesday, January 14, 2009

wanted: woody woodpecker, preferably dead, wednesday

**disclaimer**

you can send me all the hate mail you want for this post, i don't care. i know how to hit the delete button, so just save yourself some time and pretend like you sent it and i deleted it. whatever you say is not gonna change me anyways, so there!

now don't get me wrong. i LOVE animals (when they aren't destroying my property) but, i have entered into a war with the woodpeckers and carpenter bees around my house. we have been cursed with carpenter bees which bore holes in exposed wood (like the wood that holds my house up!) and lay their larvae in the holes.

EXHIBIT A:


guess what likes to eat carpenter bee larvae?

yep. woodpeckers.

so not only do i get woken up in the early mornings (a really bad thing, trust me) by the woodpeckers looking for breakfast, but now i don't have small holes in my wood. i have GINORMOUS gouges in the wood.

EXHIBIT B & C:




my house is gonna crash down on my head one day! luckily, the bees are gone during the winter, so the woodpeckers are too, but they also damage my baccy barn, my trellis for our muscadines, and our trees.

so, does anybody know how to humanely get rid of woodpeckers? if not, i'm gonna have to resort to using my shotgun this spring! oh, and don't tell me to get rid of the carpenter bees, because we try to do that too. we have this lovely sport we invented called "bee whacking" (my nutritionist loved it, because she said it's good exercise! lol) i think the last two years we have gotten over 200 bees each year, and yes we do keep count, right on the marker board on the fridge. :p~~~

bee whacking requires badmitton rackets*, lots of energy, and good hand-eye coordination. it's actually really fun to particpate, but even funner to watch somebody else attempt. if you get really good at it, you can get 2-n-1 when they are connected together in the air**. also, if you hit them just right, you can whack them right in half or sometimes they just get stuck in between the strings.

EXHIBIT D & E: not a great pic, but you can tell she's missing her butt or abdomen or thorax or whatever you call that big part! and yes, i DO know that's a she because of the white dot on her head.



just like this one is a she too. the females are usually the more aggressive and territorial ones. the males (aka: wussies) usually just fly away when you swing and miss, the females keep coming after you :)

~~~copying
microblogologist*** copying literalDan section~~~

*i guess tennis rackets would work too but badmitton rackets give you a longer reach :)
** i don't know if they are getting romantic or fighting (they are very territorial) but they join up in flight and that makes them much slower and easier to hit.
***if i'm your minion for copying you, what do i call you? my master? and does that mean you are literalDan's minion and he is your master?? lol

21 comments:

  1. From what many of my birdy friends have told me - temporarily hanging aluminum foil pans from the roof edges will scare them - they don't like it. It might look unattractive but a lot of people have reported success and then you can take them down at a later date. Someone also suggested mirrors.

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  2. Get some of those big plastic owls and hang them where they will scare off the woodpeckers.

    Ok, I don't really know if that will work, but downtown here, outside all of the skyways they have all these plastic owls to scare the pigeons off the ledges. I guess the pigeons were pooping on the people walking around downtown or something?

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  3. For a non-toxic solution you could try hot-pepper spray. Make sure you fill in the holes with putty.

    The foil pan idea from Shellmo is a great idea. Perhaps you can find heart-shaped ones and decorate early for Valentines Day. For good measure, you can hang silver & red metallic ornaments (with a little luck you haven't yet packed up from Christmas)
    Remember to take a photo & I'll feature your house in "Bad Momma at Home"

    Your neighbors will be envious of your high-style outdoor decor!

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  4. @ all of y'all - cuz i'm tired from commenting all day and i cuz i can

    ok, so fake owls (won't that scare away the mice? what will miss kitty eat then?)

    check.

    heart-shaped foil pans and christmas ornaments (that should match my white trash, junk filled porch, and unfinished block walls realllll good)

    check.

    i think i'll skip the hot pepper spray, cuz i already know them things are hard to shoot with a b.b. gun - i'll never hit them with the spray!

    oh, and mirrors (cuz i guess they are insecure and don't like looking at themselves - should i get fun house mirrors so they look fatter??)

    check.

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  5. oh wait. am i supposed to hot pepper spray the larvae, so when the woodpeckers eat them it will burn their mouths? we have a large hispanic community around here..what if they are mexican woodpeckers and like hot peppers??

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  6. Many of the "cute" and "sweet" animals are bad for us...woodpeckers included. Squirrels are on my "bad animal" list.

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  7. Get em' nonna :P Maybe those lil bug zappers will help!

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  8. why squirrels? what do they do wrong other than tick ppl off cuz they eat bird feed? i like that part, because it makes ppl invent things like that squirrel slinger thingy. cracks me up everytime i see it! lol
    i also like watching them brave my dogs to scamper back and forth from the woods to grab black walnuts. oh, and they don't wake me up in the mornings either :)

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  9. the funny thing that I kept thinking while I read this post is that I've seen bees, but I've never seen half a bee and I don't think I've ever even seen a woodpecker. I don't even know if I've seen a carpenter bee - or just a regular bee. Me and a friend saw a hummingbird once and both she and I thought it was magic...oh man, I'm getting all confused thinking about all this stuff.

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  10. You have a talent for funny. I hope they all freeze to death or fly further south.

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  11. I have THE solution.

    Finish the outside of the house and put aluminum siding up so that there is no exposed wood for the bees to get into. No bees = no woodpeckers trying to eat them. Glad I could help.

    Another thing you might want to try out is one of my incredible half springer spaniel half basset hound bee larvae hunting dogs. Guaranteed to keep away birds.

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  12. Hehe!! I see you used my pic and didn't even give me credit! Sheesh! Anyway, I'm super excited to go to mom's with you!!! I loved this post!! Your hubby better do something about covering up that wood or I'll be one ticked Woman if that house hurts you!!! And you don't have to tell him I said that, I don't wanna hear any lip back! :)

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  13. I have heard using those fake owls work.. I don't know. We had the same issue at our old house... what a pain!

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  14. @ tony - watch woody woodpecker cartoons, then you'll know what woodpeckers look like. carpenter bees look like bubble bees on steroids. humming birds are beautiful, though not very smart. they get "stuck" in our shop all the time, even with a big garage door open!

    @ weasel - thanks! and me too!

    @ bry - yeah, you would think that would be the easy solution, but seeing as how i've been begging hubby to do just that, i don't think it's gonna happen. oh, and even though you cracked me up, nice try on the puppy! hehe

    @ sis - yes you did take the pic of the bee on the racket. i won't tell hubby, but there is the smalllllest possibility that he might read this. :)

    @ kel - i think i'm gonna try the owls. i have a pigeon prob in the barn too so i'm gonna have to get several of them!

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  15. I hate bees of any kind. I say off with their heads. I just saw a beautiful pilated woodpecker outside this morning. When he or she was flying through the air the red black and white colors were spectacular. I have always loved woodpeckers.

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  16. After doing more research. Forget it. you're screwed. The bees go back to the same place they were born at to lay eggs. So eventually the colony will get huge. The larvae are so loud that they are attracting the woodpecker that are there to eat them.

    Read up
    http://www.carpenterbees.com/

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  17. @ mom - while your hatred is justified, by being deathly allergic to bees, the carpenter bees don't even have stingers, so really if they weren't like termites on steroids, you shouldn't hate them.

    @ bry - but if there is siding over the wood, they wouldn't be able to get back there right?? oh, and i know they are loud. i can sit out on my porch and hear those little suckers crunching away on my wood. not to mention having saw dust drift down on my and their yellow pollen filled poops splattering on everything too!

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  18. I have total sympathy - and no sympathy for critters that do in my house or garden. You should read my posts from a couple of summers ago when Wife went to war against the squirrels attacking her garden.

    Not to mention that damn Bambis.

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  19. @ de-I - thanks for the sympathy..off to go digging through your archives :)

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  20. Deer = evil
    Woodchucks/Groundhogs = evil
    Poison ivy = EVIL!

    When it leaves me alone I am ok with wildlife, when it messes with me/my stuff it has to go!

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  21. Forgot to add, I believe LiteralDan would be your overlord in this situation... Similar to how my Doc is the drug lord cuz he says what drugs I am to have and the pharmacists are the drug dealers that actually give me the drugs. And yes, I almost always refer to them as my drug dealers and often say I am seeking drugs when asked what they can do for me, it's how I roll.

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