Cleveland, Edgewater - Bird deterrents.

We noticed a total lack of Canada Geese at Edgewater. Canada Geese are the bane of most Yacht Clubs, they poop everywhere and are very difficult to discourage. I did happen to see a brochure, on one of the desks, advertising a company that would "humanely" dispose of Canada Geese. One of the staff commented that they "turn their back". We didn't see many gulls either. Perhaps they saw what happened to the geese. The swallows, however, were everywhere. They made a real mess of the boats and there were various techniques used to try and discourage them from perching on the life lines or other attractive perching locations.

They are cute little guys

and there are lots of them.

This is what they do if undisturbed and if you don't scrub the deck regularly.

Cleveland boat owners are quite creative in their attempts at deterring the swallows.

There's the traditional predator technique

Maybe 2 predators would be better than 1.

This would deter me from going on that boat!

Then there is the "attachments to the life lines" techniques, of which there are quite a few:

Hard to see in this picture but fishing line has been strung just above the life lines

Fluttering foil strips

 

This boat with flags all along its lifelines looked as if it was permanently in a parade.



This one also looked permanently festive with metallic Christmas garland on the lifelines.

Maybe music will scare them away.

This one was my favorite and was moored in a slip directly behind us. The owner had hung disco balls ....

from the furler..

the boom.....

and the stern.

From my dock walk I would say that those boats with deterrents were cleaner than those without. However if an owner cares enough about their boat to try these measures they probably also care enough to clean the decks regularly. I saw swallows sitting on all these boats, no technique really seemed to work.