Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet!

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Sat 23 Apr 2016 20:04
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - K21000

This is driving me crazy. My paintwork was mint, but i'm getting new scratches appearing daily on the roof, bonnet and pillars of my car. I have owned the car only a couple of months and live and work close to the coast in Cornwall. Is there anything I can do? I don't have a garage and the works car park (right by the sea) is open. Maybe some kind of cover? Bird poo I can deal with, but the scratches are something else.

Edited by K21000 on 23/04/2016 at 20:06

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Sat 23 Apr 2016 20:12
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Wolfan

This is driving me crazy. My paintwork was mint, but i'm getting new scratches appearing daily on the roof, bonnet and pillars of my car. I have owned the car only a couple of months and live and work close to the coast in Cornwall. Is there anything I can do? I don't have a garage and the works car park (right by the sea) is open. Maybe some kind of cover? Bird poo I can deal with, but the scratches are something else.

A cover will protect the car from all sorts of nasties but make sure that the inner surface of the cover is soft and won't scratch the paint in rough weather. Go for a decent stormproof one.

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Sat 23 Apr 2016 21:42
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - John Boy

I live near the coast too and seagulls are a problem due to people who feed them. One of my neighbours wants to deter them from nesting on his chimney stack and is using two hawk kites on lines attached to tall fibreglass poles. They need very little wind to fly and look very realistic in the air. It's a bit early to tell how effective they are. I've seen seagulls on the chimney stack, but they don't stick around. Birds will fly near and over the kites, but I've yet to see any bird fly underneath them.

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Sat 23 Apr 2016 22:53
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Bolt

I live near the coast too and seagulls are a problem due to people who feed them. One of my neighbours wants to deter them from nesting on his chimney stack and is using two hawk kites on lines attached to tall fibreglass poles. They need very little wind to fly and look very realistic in the air. It's a bit early to tell how effective they are. I've seen seagulls on the chimney stack, but they don't stick around. Birds will fly near and over the kites, but I've yet to see any bird fly underneath them.

I dont live there but do go a lot, but find seagulls are now stealing from people walking about, plus making a mess/scatches on motors seems to have become an epidemic most anywhere you go now

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 00:13
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - John Boy

They're very intelligent and can recognise faces. I doubt whether it's a good idea to start throwing things at them. Apparently, they can vomit and defecate simultaneously whilst performing a banking turn, so pinning yourself against a wall may not be a good defence.

Edited by John Boy on 24/04/2016 at 00:17

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 00:22
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Avant

We're far enough from the coast not to have seagulls, but some bird was perching on the door mirror of SWMBO's Mini and doing Bird's Dream Droppings on it.

Anxious for it not to spread its favours to the soft-top, I tried the old-fashoined bird-scarer: tie some string to a long stick like a bamboo, then tie the string to an old CD that you don't listen to any more. If you have a flower-bed near to where you park, push the stick into the ground at about 60 degrees. Fixing it somehow to a wall might work too.

So far it's worked: but seagulls may not be as easily put off.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 06:31
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - gordonbennet

Gulls, like the Magpie, have reached epidemic numbers now.

Fortunately you can still dispatch Magpies (and other Corvids) in order to help smaller song bird numbers, the chicks and fledglings of which Magpies kill in serious numbers, hence where we live there were no songbirds and many Magpies when we moved in, that situation is now resolved.

I understand gulls are protected, so unless someone gets something off the ground re a gull cull, its only going to get worse.

Edited by gordonbennet on 24/04/2016 at 06:32

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 09:21
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - RT

We're far enough from the coast not to have seagulls.

You're next! A couple of gull species have moved inland where the scavenging from landfill sites gives them good pickings. We're in the centre of England, as far from the sea as you can get in the UK and there's plenty round here.

From an ornithological point of view, the behaviour of gulls in populated coastal areas is down to the continual increase in discarded food debris by humans.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 09:27
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - gordonbennet
From an ornithological point of view, the behaviour of gulls in populated coastal areas is down to the continual increase in discarded food debris by humans.

Exactly, same as the winter survival rate of Corvids which wouldn't flourish in those numbers without our food waste, if we as humans are responsible we owe it to other species to try to rebalance the effects where possible.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 15:51
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - focussed

Where I live in north-western France, about 30 miles from the atlantic coast, we occasionally get flocks of gulls wheeling about in the thermals over the woods and forests early in the day. When the thermals really get going about midday, the local buzzards take off and start circling in the thermals, as soon as the gulls see them above them they are off like a shot. Funny, because buzzards don't prey on flying birds - but the gulls are very wary of big birds of prey.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 16:21
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - John Boy

I occasionally see a lone buzzard, but it's not there for long before the local gulls or crows see it off the premises.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 22:09
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - focussed

We don't get lone buzzards - there is a family or flock of about half a dozen that perch in the woods near us, they circle and call to each other up high They are as common as crows over here.

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Sun 24 Apr 2016 22:52
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Bolt

Funny you should mention crows, they seem very much more common around coastal areas now, and make more of a mess than Seagulls, breaking up dustbin bags and bins

Seagulls do more damage to cars now than they used to, and getting worse

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Mon 25 Apr 2016 11:57
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - John Boy

Seagulls don't like landing in a spot where they can't spread their wings enough to take off again. With that in mind, I'd be looking at a way of making my car roof such a space. I'd use magnets to fix a row of spikes along the roof or posts at each corner to allow wires to cross in the middle. It seems like a project for a competent DIY person. The following websites have suggestions or supplies. "Daddi Long Legs" on the 3rd one looks very interesting.

www.gullstop.co.uk/

www.ecoltd.net/bird-control/seagull-deterrents

www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/seagull-deterrent

www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bird-Scarer-for-Boats-Four-Foot...3

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Mon 25 Apr 2016 13:22
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Bromptonaut

We don't get lone buzzards - there is a family or flock of about half a dozen that perch in the woods near us, they circle and call to each other up high They are as common as crows over here.

When we first moved here (South Northants) in 1990 a Buzzard was a rare sight. They're now common. Don't need to be outside long before you see one or more quartering the countryside, or hear their mewling cry.

Seems to be same in much of UK, at least as viewed from road. Although they prey on live small mammals they'll also take carrion which of course is plentiful around road edges.

IIRC they were decimated in the fifties/sixties when persecution by farmers and gamekeepers was augmented by DDT type insecticides

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Mon 25 Apr 2016 13:55
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - RobJP

Up here in North Wales, I was out doing a bit of crop protection with the 12 bore yesterday - newly sown cornfields that have been getting a bit of hammer from jackdaw, crows and a few pigeons.

The biggest pain to getting shots away were the buzzards, actually. As soon as one was nearby the jackdaws were mobbing it.

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Tue 26 Apr 2016 00:24
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - Wackyracer

Although I'm not far from the sea, we don't have huge seagulls like they have in Folkstone and Hastings.

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Tue 26 Apr 2016 09:28
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - bazza

You can buy transparent self adhesive film which will protect the vulnerable areas. I've used it myself on the bike tank, it works fine. Easily removable if you sell.

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Sun 1 May 2016 19:05
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - K21000

I used to work in pest control many years ago and remember those spikes they use on ledges to stop the birds landing. I am thinking about inventing some kind of roll up mat with spikes on top and suckers underneath which you can roll out quickly and stick to your roof and/or bonnet! Your car would look like a hedgehog, but what the hell, at least your paintwork would be safe! Yes, I am loosing it....

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Sun 1 May 2016 19:23
Seagulls scratching paintwork on roof and bonnet! - John Boy

Yes, I am loosing it....

Funny you should say that. I was horrified when I read my last post the next day and immediately had a vision of a car park full of cars with mohican hairstyles.

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