[birding] Re: Woodpecker "problems"?

[Joel Geier]

Hi Phil & all,

Good thing there were no neighbors in the direction of that hole! 

As a kid in a farming culture where, by age 10 or so, we were given guns
to shoot pretty much whatever moved, I was warned to remember that a .22
bullet can travel up to two miles. Which of course, being a heedless
youth, I forgot about until one day when I was out doing some senseless
shooting and heard my bullets clanging off a neighbor's steel-sided
utility shed, a good half a mile away. Luckily no one was in there.

I wish I had a photo of a barn roof from a farm where I later lived in
Sweden, that suffered heavy magpie damage (that would be Eurasian
Magpies, though at the time I believe they were still considered to be
conspecific with Black-billed Magpies).

The magpies did not damage the roof directly. However, the corrugated
metal roofing was full of holes, from multiple attempts by our
landlady's father to shoot them with his shotgun. Which of course led to
water damage, and eventually termites moving into the 200+ year-old
structure which should have lasted another 100 years. Blame it on the
magpies, of course!

Joel

P.S. No April Fools on this one.

On Wed, 2009-04-01 at 11:30 -0700, Phil Rempel wrote:
> My first introduction to Northern Flickers was as a child picking up
> their feathers after my dad would shoot them. No, I'm not suggesting
> this as a solution, just what one unenlightened individual did. I
> think it only occurred one or two years, but the flickers would make
> good sized holes in our house up by the peak of the roof. Not being
> very creative my dad took the .22 out to shoot them but they always
> took off the second he got anywhere near. My Mom says she could go out
> with the rifle and the flickers would just keep up their hole making
> having no fear of her. Dad got smart and laid in the attic aiming at
> the hole until the offending party showed up. I got to pick the pretty
> feathers up.
> 
> 
> Phil Rempel
> Albany, OR
> 
> 
> 
> On Apr 1, 2009, at 5:06 AM, Don Boucher wrote:
> 
> > This time of year I get complaints from friends, family and
> > coworkers about woodpeckers on their property. As you may well know
> > there a lot of misconceptions on the threat that woodpeckers
> > actually pose to buildings. While it's true that woodpeckers are
> > capable of damage, often the woodpecker is only making noise or the
> > woodpecker is only making preexisting damage worse.
> > 
> > 
> > I posted this photo as an example of the only real kind of
> > woodpecker activity that a homeowner should take corrective action
> > to prevent.
> > 
> > http://www.neighborhood-
> > naturalist.com/images/flicker_roof_damage.jpg
> > 
> > Don Boucher
> > Corvallis, OR
> > 
> > 
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