Woodpeckers are lovely birds, but they can also be noisy and dangerous, particularly if they are pecking at your house. Their damage is easily identified; often, you will see a tidy row of small, deep holes arranged vertically or horizontally. The obvious sign that a woodpecker is attempting to establish a nesting site is the larger holes they produce, but they also emit a loud pounding sound.
How can you then prevent woodpeckers from pecking at your home? You can prevent the birds from causing damage to your house by being aware of their habits and activities.
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Why Do Woodpeckers Peck?
It can be difficult to evict bothersome woodpeckers. To begin to comprehend what to do about it, one must first understand why they hammer. The hammering habits of woodpeckers have four causes:
Attracting Mates
Woodpeckers use drumming to entice potential mates and ward off competitors. It includes making noises only by pecking. If so, the pecking normally ends when the spring mating season begins.
Foraging for Food
Because they are pecking, they also create noises when they are searching for food. Regretfully, everything creates noise! It’s possible that woodpeckers are looking for termite, carpenter, or leafcutter bee larvae in your siding.
In addition, they consume caterpillars, grubs, ants, and wood borers. If food is the goal, getting rid of insect pests and caulking siding gaps should deter woodpeckers from hammering on your house; they will probably start looking elsewhere.
Building Nests
It is possible that a woodpecker is attempting to make a nest cavity in your home’s siding. If so, it will be fairly large and spherical or uneven. This normally happens at the start of their breeding season in the spring. If you come across a hole like this, cover it and remove the birds either before or after nesting season. Avoid trapping the birds indoors.
Storing Acorns
The acorn woodpecker in the Western and Southwestern regions collects acorns in holes dug in trees or houses. Each hole is about the size of an acorn.
How to Prevent Pecking by Woodpeckers in Your Home
The downy, hairy, pileated, acorn, and red-bellied woodpeckers, as well as the yellow-bellied sapsucker and the northern flicker, are the most prevalent woodpecker species in North America.
Make an attempt to divert their attention from your home. Avoid using sticky traps that can injure birds. The problem can be approached in a number of ways, and you might need to attempt more than one.
Eliminate the Insects
Remove the insects from your siding if they are providing food for the woodpeckers. If the bugs are causing significant damage to your home, you may need to call an exterminator to get rid of them. The hammering of the woodpeckers may potentially serve as a warning sign for an issue that requires your attention.
Watch for Roosting Cavities
Cover the roosting cavity as soon as possible if the birds have created one or are about to create one, but ensure sure no birds are within. If they have already established a nest in your siding, don’t conceal the hole until the nesting season is done. Installing nesting boxes for woodpeckers in your yard could deter the birds from raising their young inside your home.
Since the majority of woodpeckers choose to dig their own roosts, add wood chips to the nesting box and gently compact them.
Larger woodpeckers, such as the northern flicker and the hairy woodpecker, require a nesting box with a 2 ½ inch hole, while smaller woodpeckers, like the downy woodpecker, require a box with a 1 ½ inch hole.
Coax the Birds Away
Serving woodpeckers this alternate meal may help you entice them away from your home, as they have a fondness for suet. Place your feeder initially close to the house and then progressively farther away. Make sure it remains full. Additionally, since they consume a lot of berries, planting trees and bushes with fruit that birds enjoy will help deter them from coming near your home.
Consider using a deterrent
A variety of woodpecker deterrents were evaluated by researchers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These included, but were not limited to, full-sized plastic owls with paper wings, reflective streamers, plastic eyeballs suspended on fishing lines, and woodpecker distress cries followed by the call of a hawk. None of the deterrents were perfect, but they did work in most cases. Some, like the distress sounds and owl calls, worked well at first, but the woodpeckers seemed to grow accustomed to them quickly.
If you want to try this yourself, seek mylar holographic tape. The reflecting streamers proved to be the most effective deterrent. Shiny objects annoy woodpeckers, especially when they move in the wind. Similar glistening artifacts have had similar purposes.
Mylar balloons, aluminum foil, and mirrors hung from locations where woodpeckers have been observed may frighten them away.
Hang Bird Netting
If your scare tactics don’t deter your woodpeckers, you can use bird netting hung from the roof line to the ground to keep them away from your home. Make sure the netting is sealed on all sides to prevent them from slipping through. To prevent the woodpeckers’ beaks from penetrating through, space the netting from the siding by at least 3–4 inches.
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