Hobo Jungle

[DennisB]

Tramp,

The day was filled with love and laughter!

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
Do you take your wife?
My wife has no interest in this kind of trip....I like to take my time and see things.

Hi Roger, I took her a couple times, but she just glazed-over, patient and gracious the whole experience, but decided to forego the "pleasure" and let me walk around in the hills solo; says it's good for me.
Here's a little of my walking/driving this time (I was in heaven for 6hrs. yesterday...)

[MurphOnMillerAve]

...I traveled N. up Rt40 to Grange Road; then, turned left onto Brake Hill Rd. and into the forest...
...my version of "roughing-it" and "getting back-to-nature"....

What can I say? I'm just a cityboy interested in staying in touch.
Murph

[rogruth]

I do remember those scenes.Thank you.Beautiful.

The stand[s] of trees remind me that there are many thin trees with high branches and rather clear lower trunks.
That is how pine trees grow in this area.

I guess I would like to be one of those persons that can live in the south or southwest in the winter and in the north in spring and summer.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Guess who's back tearing the wood off my windows again.....and he's doing a pretty good job of tearing the bark off the black locust across from the windows, too.





Guess I'm going to have to do some modifications to the windows or it's fricasseed woodpecker,

[Tramp]

Rufus, if your windows have enough bugs in them to interest that fellow, you should say, as my mother always did, "Bon Appetit!"

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rufus, if your windows have enough bugs in them to interest that fellow, you should say, as my mother always did, "Bon Appetit!"

I had the windows totally apart after last summer's episode - there's no bugs in them! I've replaced all the wood 3 times as well now.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

This'll sound nutty, but how would that bird react if you placed long strips of good quality duct-tape along that wood, sticky face up. You could curl the top and bottom of each strip to the underside, so it would hold on the wood, and have the sticky side up. Maybe, a peck or two of that sticking to his face would discourage him?
Murph

[Rufus T. Firefly]

This'll sound nutty, but how would that bird react if you placed long strips of good quality duct-tape along that wood, sticky face up. You could curl the top and bottom of each strip to the underside, so it would hold on the wood, and have the sticky side up. Maybe, a peck or two of that sticking to his face would discourage him?
Murph

A constructive idea! No idea what will work, but I'm willing to experiment. Cheaper than some angle iron, too.

[rogruth]

But if the tape sticks to its beak,you would be endangering a protected species and the species protector will come for you.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

But if the tape sticks to its beak,you would be endangering a protected species and the species protector will come for you.

Discrete use of a .410 shotgun was also suggested by one of the locals who also thought it might be a tad tough and stringy.....

[rogruth]

Now that might be a better choice if you hit a large number of times and put the remains on a neighboring property.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Now that might be a better choice if you hit a large number of times and put the remains on a neighboring property.

Oh, I believe that that might be done, just toss the carcass out on Highway 61...

[Tramp]

Beers? Beer? Beers? Many beers? Big beers? Small beer?

[webenda]

Good photograph Rufus.

Just guessing here...that material flying away from where he is pecking looks more like wood than bark. Maybe he is making a hole for a nest?

Unlike other songbirds, woodpeckers do not have a distinctive song as part of their avian vocabulary. Instead, drumming is the way the birds communicate, and woodpeckers will drum for two main reasons:

•Attracting a mate
•Advertising a territory

Reference: http://birding.about.com/od/birdingbasi ... s-Drum.htm
http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Pile ... ifehistory
http://images.nikonians.org/galleries/d ... AA8728.jpg

Around here they dig nests in saguaro cactus.


GETTING RID OF A WOODPECKER.

My next door neighbor nailed tin can lids wherever the woodpecker pecked holes in his gable. Woodpecker pecked somewhere else on his gable. Seems he was "sounding." Eventually the woodpecker went away from his house and dug a nest in my tree. The neighbor spackled the damage and painted the gable.

Another neighbor, the one who keeps the computer system running where I worked prior to retirement, researched his woodpecker problem on the internet. Tried everything suggested, noise makers, CD disks hung on strings, plastic owls on the roof, tin can lids where it pecked. Nothing deterred his woodpecker.

I have a metal chimney on the roof for the heater exhaust. They drum on that. Some people have a sheet metal duct between the cooler and house. They drum on that.

Your angle iron idea may save the wood, but I doubt it will stop the drumming. Your woodpecker might like the new sound.