Wood peckers banging on house

[bensonwe]

Need some help. I own a house with cedar siding and a northern flicker wood pecker is drilling holes threw the siding. I live in southeaster Wisconsin. Anybody have this happen and how did you persuade them not to?

[William Yanda]

They are after bugs. Like moles in the yard after larvae, if you eliminate the bugs, the birds will look elsewhere.

[Hannibal]

They are after bugs. Like moles in the yard after larvae, if you eliminate the bugs, the birds will look elsewhere.

^^^^ This ^^^^.

Or shoot the thing. Depending on the population, you might have to repeat several times.

[reloader28]

You need to shoot that pecker. They will wreck a house fast.

[Hannibal]

You need to shoot that pecker. They will wreck a house fast.

Oh, the jokes to be made with THIS little jewel. LoL! :popcorn:

[wlkjr]

12 gauge works wonders.

[ascast]

make sure it not protected the Pileated was driven to near extinction by pecking on barns and whatever tin sign they had up. spray for bugs

[Echo]

I had this problem. Ladder-backs were pecking on EVERYTHING, including the swamp cooler! I used a BB pistol, since I'm in the city limits - but they are wary! I had to sneak up and shoot fast, or they were up,up, and away! I finally put plastic siding on all my wood surfaces (main structure is slump-block, garage & storeroom were siding). You probably don't want to cover the cedar w/vinyl...

[Driver33]

Shoot them is the only thing I know that works

[tinsnips]

I used bird shot in my 22 that fixed the problem. They don't go away unless the are dead.

[woodbutcher]

:bigsmyl2: And the real fun begins when they start on the metal roof:veryconfu.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[brass410]

you'll want to load heavy for that pecker that way you'll get the whole family in one shot, after all you don't want to spend the whole year shooting pecker heads that annoy you while trashing your castle.

[Hannibal]

you'll want to load heavy for that pecker that way you'll get the whole family in one shot, after all you don't want to spend the whole year shooting pecker heads that annoy you while trashing your castle.

:popcorn:

I've this opinion about teenagers, sans the shooting part, of course.

[Plate plinker]

I worked on a house that had this problem and it wasn't bugs, peckers were nesting inside the walls. The homeowner had tried EVERYTHING. I would wonder if supply alternate nesting boxes would work.

[akajun]

yeah it has nothing to do with bugs, They get it in their mind to start pecking a old house with wood siding and they wont stop till its full or holes. You can fumigate it all you want, they will still come, in fact I think that its kind of a mob mentality thing that when one does it, other follow.
A good pellet rifle is the only solution that works.

[tim338]

Do you have a carpenter bee issue? If you do have that taken care of this spring. Sometimes mylar strips fluttering in the wind can deter them. An owl decoy may work. I have also had luck putting suet cakes out (the ones made for woodpeckers) to keep them off the house.

[Handloader109]

Yep, suet is what they want.... Got a huge guy eating his fill right now.

[Duckiller]

Before you start shooting a bunch are these birds protected? State and Federal regulations tend to protect song birds or any bird that doesn't have a season. except sparrows and starlings. Covering the cedar with vinayl may be your best solution. Check with you Fish and Game Dept. they may have some ideas.

[shooter93]

I have built a number of houses over the years that had Cedar siding. Woodpeckers would damage one house and not the one next door. No one ever really found an answer to why. Sometimes we would mount fake owls in the area they were bothering and it would work and other times it wouldn't. Sometimes assuming they weren't protected a pellet gun is the only answer. They can be a real problem and very hard to cure. Try the owls first. At times it worked like a charm.

[wlkjr]

Our neighbor put hardware cloth over the affected areas on his building. Far as I know it worked pretty well. I haven't heard them pecking in several years.

[rockrat]

hang a fly stick over the hole. When the bird comes to enlarge it, it should get its feathers caught in the stick

[Hannibal]

hang a fly stick over the hole. When the bird comes to enlarge it, it should get its feathers caught in the stick

Does the stick-em even work in the cold? And it's a bit late once the dang things have made a hole, is it not?

Had a wood-pecker drillin' one of the CCA treated posts on my deck a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure there were no burrowing insects in that old-school arsenate-treated post, but after 3 days of his annoying hammering at daybreak, he encountered a middle-aged woman in curlers and sleep deprived armed with a 12 gauge and #6 high brass.

I made a mental note not to arouse that woman early without good reason, and especially if that shot gun was at hand. :shock:

[Moleman-]

Old victor style mouse traps tacked to the side of the house with Pnut butter on the trigger. Sounds stupid and would never work, but it does.

[Hannibal]

Old victor style mouse traps tacked to the side of the house with Pnut butter on the trigger. Sounds stupid and would never work, but it does.

Ingenious. Filed away for future use.

[elk hunter]

Male Flickers are always trying to excavate a nest hole to attract females, they also hammer away on anything hard that will make noise to attract females and to discourage other males from entering their territory. Sounds just like teenagers doesn't it. Since shooting them is illegal here and I live in town we put up a Flicker house made of cedar with just a tiny hole in the front and the male that was working on our siding went to work on the tiny hole and opened it up. He wasn't able to attract a female so when he quit working on the bird house we took it down, I will close the hole up and will put the house back up this spring when he comes back.

[hanleyfan]

I had one beat on my house every morning for about 10-15 min. got tired of it and took my sons airsoft rifle which shoots hard pastic BBs and shot him, he flopped around on the ground for a few seconds and than flew off. its been a year and he has never come back.

[Mtnfolk75]

Our home is Cedar sided and we have occasionally had problems with Woodpeckers, has been about 6-7 years since it was bad. Ended up popping a few with a BB gun and then covering the holes with Canning Jar Inner Lids. That same year we had Gray Squirrels stuffing Acorns in the holes, popped a few of those too before I got the holes covered. I still see Woodpeckers & Squirrels but for some reason they leave the house alone.