Birds using your boat as a perch and relieving themselves on deck is a problem that’s been around since the dawn of boating. Whether you keep your boat on a mooring ball, tie it off in a slip or lift it out of the water on an uncovered hoist, you run the risk of birds befouling the boat you spent hours cleaning after your last adventure. With that, people come up with all sorts of ways to keep the birds at bay, from hanging old compact discs to placing a fake coyote on the dock. Here are three bird repellents that we often see on the docks.
Bird-B-Gone Bird Repeller 360
The stop: Seagulls need a place to land onboard or they’ll move onto the next boat, and this spinning system mounts tiny sails on the ends of a 6-foot-diameter metal rod to catch the breeze. It comes with many mounting options including a portable sandbag base if you don’t want to hard-mount it.
The flop: When the wind dies down and the repeller is not spinning, seagulls can land. Although Bird B Gone offers a solar-powered version ($87.99).
Price: $56.99; westmarine.com
Bird-B-Gone Bird Repellent Flash Tape
The stop: Now that CDs have ceded to streaming services, it’s hard to find shiny things, but this inexpensive tape is easy to install on towers, hardtops and rails to create a shiny distraction for the birds so they don’t want to land, especially when the tape flops in the wind. The iridescent red foil catches the sunlight to create a prismatic effect that the sea birds seem to dislike.
The flop: When the sun isn’t shining and the wind is down, it doesn’t do much to distract the birds.
Price: $5.99; westmarine.com
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Dalen Ship’s Owl Scarecrow
The stop: Probably the oldest trick in the book—mount or stand a lifelike predator on deck to ward off birds who might be eaten by said predator. There are hawks and other birds of prey, but this 16-inch-tall owl looks realistic enough to catch a gull’s attention and its base can be filled with sand to keep it stable on deck. It can also be mounted on a pole.
The flop: Some seagulls just don’t care. I’ve seen birds standing on the heads of fake owls in mooring fields.
Price: $29.99; westmarine.com
