News: 1621855331

Dare I ask... what shed? Mrs F is looking at replacing the 3m x 3m summerhouse we have, and getting in something bigger so it can be used as a combined office & craft area (as opposed to barbecue/lawnmower/furniture dumping ground as currently).

However, prices appear to have skyrocketed since we bought this "small" one 7 years ago; the same design has doubled in price, so I imagine the larger ones have increased in line with demand also...

A shed for the ages could be a retired 20ft shipping container, they are usually cheap and the money you save can be used for tarting it up.

Second hand site offices are often up for sale too.

I think it's great that you're asking us for tips here; would that be a type of Crow-d sourcing?

So, it looks like. the solution to the security problem is to not use Windows...

With the described amount of flying faeces you'd definitely want a Mac!

They tend to do the job.

But they'd eat his computer's mouse too...

Unless the cat decides to bring you a live present, then its a bird flying around banging into everything

African or European?

I have no specific knowledge of passerine pooping propensity bit I do remember once reading that a robin can eat 14ft of worms in a day.I would imagine 14ft of processed worm produces a not dissimilar amount of poop.

Try mounting one of those electrified fly swats across the window opening.

I knew it would be a comment, as soon as I read the headline! Now how long until someone makes the High Anxiety reference! Mel Brooks anyone?

Bit of mesh on the inside to keep the blighters out while the window is open?

I've been having a similar problem with pigeons lately. I keep a bowl of water outside for our dogs to drink. The pigeons have also been drinking from the bowl too, which I didn't mind in the least until recently one pigeon decided it was fun to perch on the side of the bowl, have a drink, then turn around and shit in the water. After putting up with the avian anti-social lout doing this every day for a couple of weeks I ended up moulding a bit of chicken wire to sit around the bowl and over the edge of the rim. Success, the pigeons no longer land on the rim or drink from the bowl. It was either that or serve the pigeon an ASBO.

have a cloaca. That's a one-size fits all posterior hole.

They are also immune to the effects of chilli - no receptors for capsaicin.

They also have regional dialects and songs as well as more species specific calls - these all change over time.

And... that's about it really. As to the question... what goes in must come out.

I prostrate at your learnedness.

They are also immune to the effects of chilli - no receptors for capsaicin.

I beg to er differ?, a friend once had many tropical birds, and hot dried chilies were a treat, they loved them! Maybe they don't get the ring of fire? But still enjoy them like we do!

I say we pull back to the ship and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

It's an ultra fine metal mesh that allows light & air through, but not much else. Even rain water tends to be diverted by being unable to stand against the mesh long enough to soak through. Get screens made for the outsides of the windows, then you can open them to let in everything while keeping the birds & bugs at bay. Get a larger version installed to the outside of the doors, called a "screen door" here in the States for obvious reasons, and your inward opening exterior doors can be opened in the same fashion as the windows. If your exterior doors open outward (towards the outside of the building), then you wind up with an interior screen door, having to open it to open the outer, and that's just silly.

Window screens & screen doors allow you to open the place up to reap the benefits of the world outside, all without having to let in the birds, bugs, & strays that might wander past. As an added benefit, if you attach a set of aligator clips to the metal mesh, a pair of leads to a switch, & then a power source, you're then in possession of some rather amusing form of solicitor repellent. Happy zapping! =-D

Agreed. Came in to post the same.

Put a mosquito screen on your window. Problem solved.

That said, I am interested in knowing the poop capacity of an unladen sparrow. For general culture purposes, obviously.

Thank you. I was here to say the same thing. Screens and screen doors are vital in Florida to let in winter and spring breezes without the clouds of mosquitos that can carry away small children.

Screens also keep out birds, even large [1]sandhill cranes who defecate in quantities rivaling the bodyweight of a swallow anywhere they're allowed to access. Great fertilizer for the yard but not something I want on my back porch.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhill_crane

Add me to those who came here to say much the same thing. I grew up in the US, and was quite used to having a screen window outside the glass, pretty much thought of it as the default. I had some idea that standard German windows were different, but when I moved to the UK, I was rather surprised by the complete lack of screens on any windows or doors. One area where I still prefer the US version of doing things, although there is something to be said for the British (& German) swinging windows, v. the typical American home vertically-sliding ones, where I've seen most of the screens in my day.

They do keep a good range of insect sizes out, but in Wisconsin (and many other places, I'm sure), the joke was that the mosquitoes come in two sizes: those small enough to fit through the holes in the screen door, and those big enough to open it.

It astounds me the stench that can be produced by a kitten taking a dump in a litter tray. How can something so small (and so cute) produce something smelling so rank????

"How can something so small (and so cute) produce something smelling so rank????"

Practise...... usually in your neighbours gardens !!! :)

> How can something so small (and so cute) produce something smelling so rank????

You never had children, had you...

From experience, it seems to directly proportional to the quantity of expensive equipment in the area of said bird(s)

no colourful feathers have I

but when you're in your bed

I'll be in your tech shed

and I'll shit on your Raspberry Pi

Very funny...

Now how do I make it STOP?

I think you were a victim of seagull management.

They always pop in, shit all over the place, and then disappear.

Don't blame the little sparrow.

I have a persistent problem with birds falling down the chimney. It mostly happens in the older part of the house where the flues are straight and quite wide (you can see the sky if you look up them), but it's not unknown in the more conventonal chimneys. When this happens you have a bird that's not only panic-stricken and shitting everywhere, but also covered in soot. Persuading them to leave by an open window, rather than trying to batter through the glass can be trying.

One night I found a bat in my bedroom. Much more flighty and agile than a bird, and commensurately harder to evict. I've also found a hedgehog in the kitchen and a duck in a room where I'd left the French window open.

"and a duck in a room where I'd left the French window open."

That's not far canard...

Most "fun" bird we have had fly in through open doors (doors facing garden) was a sparrowhawk. Care needed coaxing that out - did not want to get angry / stressed bird sharp & powerful claws or beak near me (not a fan of lacerations & seen the damage they do to other birds)

I live on the top floor of a Victorian house and I would normally leave the top of the sash windows open for cooling during the summer. 3 years ago, when I came home I could hear the occasional fluttering from behind the TV. It turned out to be a swift that had got through the ~3in gap but obviously couldn't find a way out. I couldn't shoo it out of the now fully open window, but managed to bundle it in an old coat and turfed it out onto a flat roof.

A year later and he (or one of his mates) was back and was again cowering behind the TV... but this time the little sod had left his calling card down the wall (luckily he hadn't crapped anywhere else, although I did spend quite a time checking everywhere, just in case!)

> problem with birds falling down the chimney

That's AFAIK a classic. A little chicken wire does the trick, you just need to check from time to time that it isn't getting too dirty, hindering draft.

I worked in a very old listed (and listing, actually) building. The department I managed manufactured a range of medicinal products.

As with many old buildings that can't be physically altered because of the protection order on them, the near-Victorian inner had boxed offices installed with the inevitable suspended ceilings. Problem was the outside had iron-framed windows and copious glass panels from the days when it was important to let natural light in because the alternative would have been oil or gas lamps.

Unfortunately, much of the glass must have been installed roughly when the building was still new and - as a consequence - a lot of it wasn't entirely there.

Enter: pigeons. And they did enter, through any gap they could find. When it was quiet, you could hear them cooing and moving around above the suspended ceilings.

Then, the company decided it had to access the services above the ceilings for a reason I can't remember now. It definitely wasn't to replace the ceiling, though, even though it was showing signs of its age. Something to do with the ducting and wiring.

When they removed the tiles, it turned out that hundreds of pigeons were actually nesting up there. Their poo was centimetres thick above the tiles, along with feathers and rotting corpses. Naturally the engineers who did it one weekend didn't give a damn about the desks in the offices (one of which was mine) underneath and a lot of this detritus was covering the desks and floors when I came in Monday morning.

It took weeks to stop itching after that.

Then another time we discovered maggots on the open air-cooled conveyor that cooked product ran along. It turned out a pigeon had got into the gap between the chimney stack and roof to nest, died, and the maggots that it thus gave rise to found the best way was down - into the manufacturing area.

You've left your windows unsecured and you have a problem with fat birds? (I'm still bitter over the pair of tits deciding our back garden isn't where they want to settle.)

Generally I'd just get some garden netting and just have it hooked at the top/bottom so you can still operate the window in both the open and closed mode.

Tux because he's the only bird icon we have.

I've got a fruit cage for my Blueberries with netting completely secured absolutely everywhere, and the little sods still manage to get in.

This morning, one of our pair of garden Robins. And a passing Blue Tit (like yours, they don't actually live here - they just come for my bloody Blueberries). Frankly, I think they know how to open the cage door or something.

They're welcome anyway.

You must already know this, surely?

It’s El Reg.