The trouble with birds on landfill sites is that they tend to be very tame. Please see our article on
neophobia for an explanation of this. Understanding the motives of birds provides an answer to their control. Most fear in birds is a result of genetically acquired instinct, a lesser amount is also learnt as a direct result of experience. Most bird control methods rely on exploiting the weaker learnt fears such as the bang of a gun or sight of a human figure. A few such as Helikites exploit the much more powerful innate fear of hawks or nest predators.
Gloucestershire landfill site 4th Oct, 1994,
without Helikite |
Same site, with a Helikite - No birds! |
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 | On most landfill sites the instinctive fear of a hawk caused by a Helikite alone is all that is required to scare seagulls and crows. However, on about 30% of landfill sites even a Helikite can be ignored after a while. Much instinctive fear in these birds has probably been bred out of them over many generations of dependency upon the site. In these circumstances you need to reinforce what is left of their instinctive fears with a new lethal learnt fear. This reinforcing exercise is possible and worthwhile because you are likely to be dealing with the same individual birds over and over again. (This same exercise against wild woodpigeons on crops is likely to be largely futile because only about 15% of woodpigeons are local to the places they feed - luckily, being wild, woodpigeons are easy to scare with Helikites alone.) The lethal reinforcing element is well provided by flash rockets. These are well made and reliable fireworks designed to be lit from an angled tube, fly about 100 yards and then explode with a loud bang. They provide an obviously lethal threat to the birds that is taken very seriously. Shotgun cartridges, or other noise producing methods are not so visible in the air and so are not so good as the rockets. The problem with the rockets is that although always excellent at shifting the birds their effect tends to be short-lived. Therefore when used alone many need to be fired through the day which is annoying to people nearby, slightly costly (about £1 each) and time consuming for site personnel. |
But when combined with a
Helikite the effect of the rockets are extended to the whole day. The procedure : As the birds gather when the site face is being uncovered in the morning fire one rocket 100 feet above them to start them circling into the air. Immediately fire a second rocket into the same place which by now will be full of wheeling birds. Not surprisingly they hate this. Now immediately release the
Helikite to fly 200 feet above the site face. The birds will not return for the rest of the day as they associate the Helikite with the rocket. To ease the use of the helikite on landfill during busy working days it is recommended that helikites are flown from 13 meter tall sectional aluminum kite poles. This means that there is no possibility of the helikite coming down amongst working machinery around the site face during high winds or rain. For prices and delivery of poles please phone us on the number below. The
Helikite is of course, easy to look after and will not disrupt work on the landfill site, annoy neighbours or cost significant money to fly. Problem solved.
