Birds!!

Peace

Not quite Stephen King but... there are a couple of birdy's trying to nest in the gable end of my house. They don't seem to be very successful as most of their nesting material is ont he ground in my garden however they still have a nest up there.

My dad seems to think they are starlets. He also says I shouldn't destroy the nest as its coming into mating/nesting season. Personally i'd have no problem taking a flame thrower to it but it would cause problems witht he house insurance.

There is a small posibility they could get into the attic between the eve's.

So, can these little feckers cause damage? Would destroying the nest get rid of them? Shoul I leave them alone? Is there a H5N1 concern here?

GreeBo

The concern is the noise and, to be blunt, the ****e they will leave everywhere.

Peace

So if i go up a ladder and show the nest the business end of my broom handle, will they not just rebuild the nest?

BillG

Hi,

There is really no problem with birds living in the roof eaves. We have had sparrows in the eaves of our roof for years and they have done no damage at all and birds are actually reletavily clean.

As to H5N1, most experts agree that song birds are highly unlikely to spread the virus to humans as they never come into close contact with them. The only instances of avain/human transmission have been with people working with poultry. Quite a few wild songbirds are even unlikely to contract the disease due to their habits in the wild. In fact, many preservation societys (RSPB for one) are very concerned that people will stop feeding wild birds due to misplaced concerns over H5N1.

If your feeding birds on a table just wash your hands after feeding and that will be fine. For more info see the link below:

http://www.rspb.org.uk/policy/avianinfluenza/yourquestions.asp

pbergin

seeing they have started I would leave them for this year.
but one solution Ive Ive see work is if you cut strips of a plastic bag, about 3X18 inch's (fairly heavy plastic, not the real thin bags) and hang then from the soffet, this prevents them from flying in close enough to build.

Peace

Ah well seems a crow did the job for me. Found one of the eggs on the ground today and spotted a crow or two investigating the nest as well.

crosstownk

Leave them there if possible. The eggs that were thrown out by the crow were probably the first clutch of the season. The starlets will go down again for a second and maybe even a third clutch. If it was me, I wouldn't remove the nest until they are finished breeding. They won't cause any damage and the rain will eventually wash away the sh!te!

rooferPete

Hi,

Life goes on, I would leave them there, in fact even when in the roofing biz full time I refused to destroy nests.

There are some countries in Europe where they shot all the native birds for "Sport" (Italy, France etc) and they are no better off for their actions.

With all the new houses that have been built the birds must adapt to their new surroundings, in fact at one time I heard an old saying along the lines that it was a poor house that didn't have a nest on the gables.

.

old boy

leave em be, i have them for 10 years under a felt roof on de plasterboard, no visible sign of damage, they will be gone early june

jmkennedyie

They won't do any harm. If they nesting in the eves, then sure might add some extra insulation :-)

Just in case you want to confirm what they are, they could be starlings (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/s/starling/index.asp). Other possibilities are House Sparrows (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/h/housesparrow/index.asp) or - if they are building a mud nest clinging under eves - House Martins (http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/h/housemartin/index.asp)
(these are beginning to struggle recently, so every nests counts for them)

Some Irish-specific Bird flu questions and answers here http://www.birdwatchireland.ie/bwi/pages092003/news/newsfaq_avianflu.html.
- nothing to warrent destroying the nest. In fact, as far as I know this is illegal.