My Saturday Evening Project, Or, How to Drive Birds Insane!

My balcony area is lovely and huge. I've put a little table and two chairs out there, a bunch of plants, and a little seating area. It does overlook a busy major street, but I would still like to be able to sit out there sometimes, esp. in the summer, and enjoy a meal. Not to mention string Christmas lights out there and have people over.

Alas, I haven't done so in the nearly 9 months I have lived here. There is bird poop EVERYWHERE. I keep cleaning it up, it keeps coming back. For some odd reason, I don't particularly feel like eating out there on my poopy balcony...



Tonight, it finally dawned on me that I could probably figure out some solutions to repel the birds. Buy an owl statue, maybe? some of those spikey things? The problem with all of these is that they a) cost money and b) my balcony has probably 15 foot ceilings, so I would be afraid of trying to install them all myself.

I did a little research on the internet. There are so many good, cheap ideas! For one, hang old CD's--the prism reflection and the movement will scare birds away. I don't have any old CD's, so I got to thinking: what do I have around the house that's shiny and lightweight (ie will move around with the wind)?

Aluminum foil. I took a small bit of it, created a strip, poked a hole through one end, and used my leftover yarn from my scarf project to make a hanging bird-eating monster. It took some major doing and about an hour to make sure the loop went securely around the antenna that is affixed to the top of my balcony at about 12 feet, but I did it. For free!

We shall see how this works...

[EDIT: It's not working...going to try the CD thing now.]