They could temporarily cover the areas in which the flickers are interested
with large sheets of plastic visqueen. It doesn't look pretty, but the
birds will lose interest as soon as the house no longer appears to be one
big tree trunk, and when they establish a nest site elsewhere the attack on
the house should cease. At that time they can take down the plastic.


--
Kevin D. Mack
Edmonds, WA
www.goatislandimages.com
http://everydaywild.blogspot.com/


> Message: 8
> Date: Sat, 3 Jul 2010 17:10:20 -0400 (EDT)
> From: hjnoble at igc.org
> Subject: [Tweeters] Neighbor's serious problem with Northern Flickers
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Message-ID:
> <20126663.1278191420320.JavaMail.root at mswamui-swiss.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>
> Hi Tweets:
> We live north of the UW where Ravenna and Maple Leaf intersect. For the past
> few years our neighbors have been fending off Flickers that are pecking at the
> second story of their house. They tried mylar strips, an electronic distress
> call, an inflatable scary thing the Audubon shop calls terror-eyes, even
> constructed a Flicker box. All to no avail. I post this in hopes the Tweeters
> community has some ideas for them.
> Dianne and Larry are at: diamars at comcast.net
>
> Their note----
> We???ve been particularly hard hit this spring by persistent Flickers pecking
> on the SE corner of our house ??? 12 NEW holes! I???ve covered them with
> galvanized plates as fast as the birds could start them. Over the last
> several years you may have been amused by our efforts to deter the birds; this
> year we even built a special Flicker bird-house ??? to no avail. We???ve
> recently cut down 2 straggly trees that may have been giving the birds extra
> cover. This summer we???re planning to stick our necks out and replace the
> siding that has been pecked. We???re considering cementitious siding on that
> quadrant of the wall ??? maybe it will be too hard for the birds, or at least
> not as tasty as pure cedar.
>
>