Russell S.Crow

We’ve been having awful problems with birds (in particular sparrows and starlings) shitting all over our outdoor furniture and pavers under our pergola. Infact…the birds in our neighborhood are so fat from eating our dogs dinners they can hardly fly and instead sit round ’sunning’ themselves on our outdoor furniture and swimming in the dogs water bucket!

I was so sick of cleaning the pavers (thanks to dad’s kook-a-rach-a and for those that are not familiar, I believe its actually a ‘Karcher’ - pressure cleaner) and washing the furniture that I decided it was time to fix them once and for all.

So we’d seen a plastic hawk that hung from some fishing wire at our local Bunnings (hardware) store and figured we’d give that a go. It’s suppose to move round in the breeze and frighten smaller birds. $35 later and the birds we perching on the rafters above the hawk and shitting on its head! That worked well…NOT!

Then, someone told us that red tinsel scared them off. So thankfully being Christmas time there was an abundance of tinsel in the shops. $10 later our pergola looked like a very sadly decorated Christmas tree…but the birds continued to shit as the tinsel blew in the breeze along with the useless hawk!

I was discussing the bird problem with a friend who had come to stay over the holidays. I told her I had even resorted to a water spray bottle and would squirt water at them whenever they landed. I said “Of course that’s fine when I’m around but I really can’t sit there all day.”

I could see the “Light bulb” in her head.

Firstly she had her husband up on the ladder with some fishing line and some nails. He wrapped the fishing line around some nails that he’d hammered into the rafter above the expensive, useless, piece of crap hawk! Ha!…birds cant see it and fly in for a landing..oops! Yay! that worked!

Then…she set to work on her next idea. She requested pantyhose, a tshirt, hat, newspaper, pants, string…Puzzled I handed it all over.

Meet Russell…

Russell S.Crow to be precise. (that’s scarecrow people…keep up!)

How relaxed he looked sitting round the pergola. We sat him at the table…we sat him on a chair near the dog bowls…we sat him on my exercise bike (well its not like I’m using it!)…and…the birds loved him! Great!!

Everytime I walked out the back door and caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye…he gave me a fright. But not the birds! And to top it off the dogs loved him too…infact, Leilah loved his shoes and did her best to relieve him of them!

So, there he sits…Russell S.Crow. Just another useless object in our war on the birds!

Got any ideas? We’re at a loss!