The birds have been horrible of late. The Grackles, or at least what I believe to be Grackles, have been getting bolder and louder. They make a terrible mess everywhere they sit, particularly when purple berries are in season, and seem to delight in tracking their feces all over Alana's decks, hatches and rails. I'd start shooting them, but I think I'd be arrested before I could make a noticeable dent in their population. Rather than scrub the boat every day, I have adapted a neighboring boat's method of discouraging the birds. Instead of the tin plates and aluminum foil they use, I have suspended 49 CDs above Alana's decks and boom. The discs twirl and flash in the sun, creating quite a disco effect which I hope the birds will find annoying. Of course their will be no strobe effect at night or on cloudy days, but if the birds only stay away on sunny days, I'll be satisfied. If the experiment continues to produce encouraging results, I'll work on a way to get some CDs up above the spreaders, a favorite Grackle hangout. A plastic owl might also help, particularly at night and on those cloudy days. As you can see by the malignant look in his eye, I have a determined enemy, one not likely to be deterred forever by some harmless twirling CDs.
