Even though no one from here knows me in real life, nor I know anyone from here in real life (馃槅 what a genius sentence), but you may know from my posts, that I'm quite a peaceful person, love animals and try to protect them anytime I can, to the point where I am willing to pick up every single snail on the road after a rain and place them on the grass, out of the way, where no one can step on them, accidentally, or intentionally. Even got into a fight with my dad a few years ago, because I was not willing to kill a snail that was eating his plants.
When I heard his neighbor sold his gorgeous horse, I was shocked for 2 days, could not understand how can someone just sell an animal that was with them for a few years, like it is a soulless product. This is how sensitive I am towards them.
A couple of years ago, I was at the neighborhood admit, to pay my monthly contribution and was asked to sign a petition addressed to the municipality. The scope of this petition was to as for help as the mess the crows were making was unbearable. Needless to say, they were seeking a peaceful solution, without harming the birds. What has been done since then? Nothing. Why? There's not much to be done. You can't shoot them one by one, you can't poison them either, so what's left? Nothing.
Personally I wasn't affected much as I am just passing through that area and honestly, it is what it is, but now I'm personally affected in a much worse way.
I have an open balcony. Most people are closing their balcony, to gain more space, but I am not willing to as it's a nice way to get some fresh air, when my neighbor is not smoking (yeah, shame on him). It was all nice, till a few years ago, when doves started to come. At first it was fun as I love them, but then the situation started to worsen.
There's a rule adopted by the municipality, according to which feeding birds is forbidden and you can get fined. May got angry when this rule came to life, they thought it's cruel to the birds as they could not see the real reason.
First of all, you should only feed birds, if you can assure them food continuously, because once they know there's food for them, they stop searching for it in a natural way and once you stop feeding them, they may starve, especially during the winter. The second reason is the mess they make and this is where I have a problem, a big one. At first it was just one poop or two, but now, if I don't clean it up twice a week, the whole balcony would be full with it. For some reason they find the place inviting and would sit there all day.
A few years ago I even made a scarecrow, named Helena, even posted about it and was a lot of fun, but after awhile, Helena served for nothing as the doves just ignored her.
The helplessness has been driving me crazy, till last month, when I got so mad at the whole situation that I started researching and turning every single stone to find a solution. I'm not sure how much experience you have in this regard, but most of the products you find out there are a big waste of money and I am not in the mood of making profit to others, while throwing money out of the window and remaining with the problem unsolved, so I made some calls, looking for feedback and decided to go with a professional ultrasonic device and solar panel, with LED flashes, motion sensor, light sensor, for rodents, rats, ferrets, birds, reptiles, dogs, cats and wild animals. This is the definition they gave to the device.
It wasn't cheap, but I said I'll give it a try as this device was my last hope. There's literally nothing else you can do, to scare them off. I can't even tell you how stressful the first day was, till I tested it to see what it does. It's been a month since I got it delivered and can say it does what it is sold for and I couldn't be happy. The only problem is the gloomy days, as it's running on solar power and when there's not enough sun, you have to charge it. Otherwise it worth every single penny. The coverage range is 12m, so it's enough for me.
Activists say this is nature taking back what it's hers, and I understand birds have to live as well, but not on my balcony. It is a huge problem and there is not much you can do about it. For now the problem is solved, but if this fails, I don't know what I'm going to do.
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