I was in a hardware store and saw this contraption with little plastic spikes sticking up. It was sold in 1 foot lengths and designed for us city dwellers who have pidgeons hanging out on the windowsills, it prevents them from being able to roost on the sill (they don't have any where to put their feet I guess).

Perhaps check out a hardware store for something like this and see if you can put it around where your baskets are hanging so the birds have no where to land?

A few apartments ago I had that problem - I had a window right by my bed and the cooing and flapping would wake me up. (I would scream and bang on the window).

Hello
you could try to build a "fort" by sticking wooden skewers (like oversized tooth picks) into the pots. The remaining ends should be at least 4 better 6 inches long, and you should arange those skewers so close that a bird cant land between them. This technic guarded tiny seedlings against pigeons on my balcony in Berlin. And I would avoid to offer them any kind of "housing" like an empty basket. If you're frequently on your balcony you can try to anoy them permanently by squirting water jets at them. Good luck

My mother and her boyfriend enjoy nailing 'em with water pistols! Requires persistance but they learn not to go to that balcony after awhile :-p

Balcony gardening is wonderful, but there is a tremedous problem with pidgeons. A plethora of toothpicks detract from the beauty of the plants, although they work. Please, does anyone know a deterent that works. The biggest suggestion is mothballs, but they don't work. One person had a pidgeon nesting on a mothball and trying to hatch it. They are dirty, horrible creatures and once they've taken up residence you have them forever.

I'm in a constant battle with them. Have tried shiny streamers, plastic windmills, owl figures of all kinds, anything that would shimmy and shake in the wind, vaseline on the railings - nothing works. I'd like to try the plastic spikes, but it would cost a small fortune to put them out there - they'd have to be on top of the railing as well as on the ledge at the bottom of the baclony.

My biggest problem with them (two in particular) is that they are forever trying to make babies on my terrace. Four eggs already this spring (picked up and destroyed, so now I can feel like a murderer). This particular couple has been around for years and I simply cannot get rid of them!

My garden this year looks like crap, what with all the various protections I've got over my pots to give the plants a chance to grow - aside from pigeons, this year I got a ton of those pesky little starlings eating my plants. The bamboo skewers in the pots were pretty effective against the pigeons, but those starlings just swooped into the pot from the top and ripped up/out quite s few small plants.

A BB gun might work - but I don't want to kill or injure them, just keep them away from my terrace.

Sigh.

PV

How ironic that this thread was dug up from last year. A couple days ago, I noticed 1 coming back and forth to my balcony and I have a feeling it was one of the babies that had hatched here a couple years ago. It (I'm thinking it was a she), as I found out yesterday, was gathering nesting material (as if I were some hi-rise version of Home Depot), and flying off with it. Well... I guess the fact that she was flying off with it to somewhere else meant the nest wasn't being built here. As it was, earlier this year I had to chase two off who were about to mate out there and they haven't returned.

I think i will try this toothpick (skewer) thing. we have pigeons (not as bad as the last place) but we have a small forest across in the back, so i have caught them three times on the balcony. Not to mention it torments my cats to see such a lovely prey that they can't have, I have worried about them messing with my seedlings. As it is we have had such a horrible spring that I don't want to loose any more to dumb birds. I would do the BB Guns (also for the stupid crows...who knew that the crows have now settled in Munich?) but I think that is against the law here and would just reconfirm German opinions of Americans running around shooting things...

Cheers,
tasha

Haven't tried the BB gun but sounds like it might scare them away.

Have you tried aluminum foil yet? I tried stakes (of various materials), and a variety of other things, but nothing worked. They kept coming back and laying eggs and in the process destroying my plants. Then someone suggested aluminum foil... a long sheet of it, and attaching it to the hanging baskets, or a tall stake in one of the pots (like a flag). Apparently, the noise of the foil scares them away. Anyway, amazingly, I have not had any pigeon nesting problems this year!! (knock on wood). They still lurk and hover... but have not tried to nest. They did eat all my windowbox sweetpeas while they were still seedlings (a loss that I still haven't gotten over) but other than that, problem free.

Good luck... I really hope this works for you all!

I know they will flock to any source of food. If your cats have food out there, it is only a further attractant for them to nest, build, stay for the rest of their lives. I was so startled coming home early from work one day. There was a whole flock out there, clearing up the rest of the cat food. I kept wondering why my cats weren't putting on weight with all the food they were putting away?

Pigeons are the Lord's stupidest animals anyway. Why, oh why, would any one raise them??? Well, I guess I can ask my mother when she gets here in two weeks. She RAISES pigeons, doves, chickens, quail, geese. It might be a Bird Thing, but PIGEONS!????