Bird Defences - Stage 1

Lying in your bed early morning trying to have a decent sleep, and all you can hear is 'tap tap tap' and the calls of the birds on the windows. Really annoying.

Add to this and the excessive amount of poop that they leave on the glass and ledges and ground below.

It was time to engage mission Bird Defences - Stage 1...

The small ledges on the windows between the panes are only about 60mm deep, so it is not the big pigeons, but the smaller birds, so had to look at the smaller type spikes. I don't want the metal spikes here, as the glass has a reflective coating to help with the summer sun and it would easily get scratched.

Having searched locally and found nothing, I headed to the the usual, the internet. After looking at few different ones, I settled on Bird Defender Narrow Plastic.


These are manufactured by Jones & Sons in the UK and I got them via Ebay. under their seller name DefenderBirdSpikes http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/defenderbirdspikes?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Having measured up how much I needed, I settled for 2x10m packs, and shipped them via Aramex Shop&Ship. The package weight was around 1.12Kg so was 112 QAR to ship.


[Update: Do NOT use double sided foam strips, they don't stick properly, see update here.]
As the spikes are relatively sheltered out of the elements, not that we get much rain anyway, I elected to use some double sided 20mm wide foam tape (from the local Carrefour) to attach to the metal window frames after first giving them a wash to remove the dust. I simply cut a small strip about 20mm x 5mm and stuck it to the end of each strip.

Attaching all the whole length section first, to fill in the gaps at the end, it was simply a case of bending the strips to snap them at a breakpoint line and snipping off the ends if necessary to fit the remaining gap.

It didn't take long at all, and think I had fitted around 17m in about 1 to 1.5 hours, including all washing of the frames and sticking the foam strips to the spikes.

As they are clear plastic, once they are attached, you don't really notice them unless you are looking for them, and after a while you forget they are there. You don't really notice them from the inside looking out either.

Side of the villa

Master Bedroom Balcony 
Main Balcony

Living Room Front Window

Looking out from inside

You can see more on the different types of spikes they do and get more on the technical specifications like sizing info on their website. http://www.birdspikesonline.co.uk/Bird-Spikes/default.aspx

I certainly noticed this morning, the first morning after fitting, the lack of bird noise, particularly from the master bedroom balcony, as they are always there first thing.

Next up is Stage 2 - to deal with the pigeons on the ridge lines and overhangs, but think will go for the larger metal spikes, but still to be decided....there is a local company here for them, but tempted to do it myself, as they are dragging their heals, but not sure how the shipping costs would come out. Maybe have to make some more enquiries and to a cost estimate, but also need to factor in 'risk of falling'!

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