How do you keep birds away from your pool?
* Local people in Hawaii (where we have lots and lots of birds!) hang old and unused CDs from trees around their yards. When the sun hits a CD it shines a light everywhere all the time! Try this. It will keep all birds away and they won�t come back. If you have lots of birds at your home, I would hang the CDs in at least 4 spots around your house.
* My observations regarding the bird droppings in our pool are that the birds are actually cleaning out their nests and dropping the waste in and on our pool. My guess is that they are discarding it to avoid drawing predators to the nest area. Hopefully when their young have left the nest, the problem will be over.
* I have problems with Grackles (a type of blackbird) and the amount of bird waste dropped in our pool each day is unbelievable. I have tried both the plastic owl approach and the 'Terror Eyes Ball' to no avail. Given that this non-native bird population seems to go unchecked and is increasing in this area annually, I have decided to start my own trapping and eradication program. I didn't spend all of that money on a pool to provide a cesspool for birds. There are high priced 'high frequency' bird repelling systems that you can buy, but they recommend that you use them in conjunction with the 'Terror Eyes Balls'. By the time you buy all of the paraphernalia that they recommend, your yard will look like a flea market and there are no guarantees that they will work. Therefore, I would highly recommend that you take the eradication approach as well.
* I have the same problem this year with the black birds spitting in the pool. I bought a $19.99 huge owl with a rotating head. I put it out there two days ago, not one bird came by. You have to move the owl every other day. It works!
* Nothing works. I have two owls and the black birds just about land on them. Yesterday I washed the solar cover, this morning there was too much droppings to count.
* I agree with the observation about the birds cleaning out their nests; most of the poop that we're cleaning out of our pool water is already hardened and we opened our pool in mid May. Last year we had no bird poop problems, and we opened the pool the first week of June, perhaps the young were out of the nest by then.
* We have tried the owls and they don't work either. Aside from poisoning the birds, which the US government has done to control the problem with overpopulation, nothing seems to help. Birds are crafty creatures. You might try a fountain to spray up water to see if that helps. An air rifle helps some (I'm a bad shot, but the sound scares them off temporarily). Good luck. A permanently enclosed pool structure is beginning to look like the only way to go.
* It has been over two weeks since I have put my owl around the pool and not one black bird came back to spit in the pool. They must be really dumb black birds in my neck of the wood.
* I found the best way to keep the birds away is rubber snakes. Lifelike, colorful snakes. Scares the people the first time they see them. I�ve had friends fall in the pool fully-clothed trying not to step on one of them. It works best if you can place them every 15 feet or so. I have 4 evenly placed around a 41 x 16 pool and have no droppings at all. Before the snakes, I had to wash the concrete around the pool every single day.
* Use fishing line and string an X formation or grid (depending on size) Birds see 10 more than we do it will keep them from Flying above the pool, while not being an eye sore to the user. The nasty problem is over and done. While the birds still will come round, just not over the pool leaving S@#$%!
* I have the ultimate answer. It has worked for the last three years. My husband puts fishing line up above the pool before we take the cover off. It has to go back and forth and criss-cross over the pool. He has added some dowels to our fence in certain places for height and also ties it to parts of the house and trees. Once the birds start coming, you'll be able to tell quite quickly if you need more fishing line. We keep it up for only a few weeks and then take it all down. It is the only thing that has worked. And we learned to make sure to get it up before you take the cover off the pool. Hope this helps. It's been so awesome to not have to deal with the bird droppings anymore.
* I had the same problem with grackles. The first step is to observe any activity in tall bushes (cedars) that may be in the vicinity of your pool (your yard or the neighbours�)...they make a lot of noise while they are building. I just destroy the nests before they have a chance to fully build them. You may have to do this a couple times (I did it 4 times for one pair), but they get eventually get the hint and move on. But wear a hard hat! They may swoop at you. Another thing I have heard is to put rubber snakes on top of your solar blanket or around the pool. Some say it works, others don't. But my preference is to knock down the nests before they start.
* "Mr. Flip". It cost about $15 dollars. It is a 48" tall inflatable dolphin that is weighted in the bottom so it stands straight up. Leave it in your pool all the time and the birds will stay away. We have used it for years and never had a problem. It popped last year and when we opened our pool we had bird poop everywhere. We purchased a new Mr. Flip and haven't had a problem since.
* Try a product called 'No More Ducks' from Australia.
* My landscaper in Arizona recommended the inflatable snake. Four notes: One, it doesn't work overnight, so be patient. Two, warn visitors it's out there. Three, tie it up with some fishing line so it doesn't blow into the neighbor's yard and freak them out (they ARE realistic). And four, most important for bird success, you must move it around every couple days or the birds get used to it. I usually move mine every day. The landscaper stressed this. I now have zero bird problems, and I was hosing and vacuuming ungodly volumes of poop every day before.
* I don't know about other types of birds, but in Southern California where I live, ducks are the problem. We have found that fake rubber snakes on the pool deck work quite well (once your guests get used to them being there and don't freak out everytime they walk by them!) We've had them out for about 8 years now and no ducks have come around. I guess they haven't figured out that the snakes haven't moved in all that time!
* In almost all cases, immobile objects do not work. As it has been said, birds are very clever and very, very stubborn. They will quickly become used to any static scare object, like one of those snakes, and roost in the area anyway. Basically anything that stays remotely the same is not going to work. One of the people who answered here said using an owl with a rotating head worked, but you had to move it every other day. But who has time for that? The TerrorEyes balloon (
http://www.bird-x.com/products/terror.html) moves itself. The holographic eyes follow birds wherever they go, terrifying them and causing them to leave an area. Sometimes, as one reader noticed, particularly tenacious birds will still roost in the area. There are dozens of other products that you can buy, including invisible, harmless, food-grade chemicals and sonic repellers. Your backyard will not ending up looking like a "flea market". You can put the TerrorEyes ball on your roof, where no one but the birds will see it. Any chemicals are invisible, and sonic repellers are just a box and speakers, hardly more noticeable than telephone wires. These products have been proven time and time again in the field (
http://www.bird-x.com/casestudies/index.html), and I'm sure they will be effective in this situation as well.
Last year we had our above ground pool between our house and our neighbor's house. The bird use the house's roofs to perch on and then they dive bomb the pool when they feel like it. This year we put the pool in the open so that we can see when the birds are flying into the pool. We can see the pool from the back windows and we tap on the glass to chase them away. if they start diving into the pool. If the pool is between the two houses then the birds feel less threatened and protected. If the pool is in the open then they tend to stay away from the pool more often. This year, with the pool in the open, the birds have been staying away and have had no problem with them.
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