# Rat-a-tat-tat



## debodun (Jul 15, 2017)

For the last few days, a woodpecker had come around about 7:30 am and starts pecking at the eave over my bedroom window. Sounds like someone using a jackhammer on a woodblock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rgc839e_wVc

Makes me feel like my house is wormy enough to attract its attention. Look at the damage another woodpecker did to the eave over the front porch a few years ago.



I wish it would take its pecker to someone else's house.


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## Ruth n Jersey (Jul 15, 2017)

I agree with you . We have 3 kinds of woodpeckers that visit my yard frequently. I love to watch them and feed them in winter but recently a worker from our agriculture extension service showed me severe damage on our trees from the peckers trying to get to the grubs in the trees. I thought this is a good thing but it seems the woodpeckers just move sideways around the tree and eventually drill holes completely around the trunk in one spot. This causes the tree to die. It cuts off the food supply from the root of the tree to anything higher than the drilling. I guess I'll continue to feed them in winter but if I see them drilling in the summer I'll shoo them away. Sorry about that damage to you house,debodun. Probably will cause more rotting as time goes on.


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## debodun (Jul 15, 2017)

Ruth n Jersey said:


> Sorry about that damage to you house,debodun. Probably will cause more rotting as time goes on.



I could spackle the holes and paint over them, but it's in an area difficult to get to without a 20 foot ladder and I'm not comfortable climbing up that high on a wobbly ladder or leaning out over the eave.
This is the section from a long-shot of the porch.


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## Don M. (Jul 15, 2017)

If you are unable to get up there on a ladder, there is another way to "discourage" the woodpeckers.  Get a can of the "long distance" wasp spray....the kind that shoots a stream of bug killer about 20 feet...and douse that area of the house good with the bug spray.  That will leave an odor and coating that the woodpeckers will avoid....AND it will help kill off the bugs that are attracting the woodpeckers.  

In a house that old, there is a good chance that the bugs are termites...in which case you might want to have an exterminator check your place out.


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## NancyNGA (Jul 15, 2017)

debodun said:


> ... Look at the damage another woodpecker did to the eave over the front porch a few years ago.
> 
> View attachment 39344
> 
> I wish it would take its pecker to someone else's house.


Deb, that looks more like carpenter bee damage to me.  The bees make long tunnels in the wood and lay eggs. The woodpecker was probably just pulling out the larva. IF that's what it is, the bees have already done the major damage, not the woodpecker.  You might try to fill in the tunnels and give the wood a really thick coat of semi-gloss oil base paint. They don't like that.  Of course that would still involve a ladder or dangling.  Good luck!


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## debodun (Jul 28, 2017)

I actually saw the woodpecker today on the side of a huge maple tree in my backyard busy pecking at a knothole. I tried to get a photo, but as soon as I raised the screen, it flew away. Before, when I tried to take a photo when it was up under the eave, it flew off as soon as I opened the door. It seems to be very wary of people. It blended in very well on the maple bark - no red I could see not to say there isn't any - just kind of a cafe-au-lait brown base color with some mottled darker patches or stripes. It could be a flicker, a female woodpecker or an immature bird. Unless I can get a pic, it's still speculation. It's call is a series of high-pitched peeps.


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## SeaBreeze (Jul 28, 2017)

We get woodpeckers sometimes pecking at our metal rain gutters, the first time we ever heard that sound it was startling, like an electric drill.  Luckily they only do it short term for mating purposes and haven't done any damage to our house.  You can hire a handyman to do the repair for you Deb, please don't get up on a tall ladder if you're not comfortable doing so.


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## Don M. (Jul 28, 2017)

We have all sorts of woodpeckers hanging around our forest.  My favorite is the huge Pileated Woodpeckers...they sound like a hammer hitting the trees.  Here's a good site with sound and a video of them.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/pileated_woodpecker/sounds


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## Timetrvlr (Jul 28, 2017)

SeaBreeze said:


> We get woodpeckers sometimes pecking at our metal rain gutters, the first time we ever heard that sound it was startling, like an electric drill.  Luckily they only do it short term for mating purposes and haven't done any damage to our house.



A couple of years ago,my son was awakened early every morning by a woodpecker pounding on his metal chimney pipe. He finally got up on the roof and loosely wrapped the pipe with chicken wire. That stopped the woodpecker "mating call".  

I put out woodpecker suet blocks every winter and we have a couple of woodpeckers that come to them but they don't bother our house.


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## jujube (Jul 28, 2017)

I had one that used to peck on the metal vent pipe on the roof.  My heavens, it sounded like a fire alarm in the house.  I was told that he was doing that because it was so loud and would reach the whole neighborhood (which it did).  He was essentially saying, "HEY LADIES!  THERE'S A REAL STUD HERE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD!  AND ALL YOU OTHER GUYS? GET OUT....THIS IS *MY* TERRITORY!  I tried spraying him with the hose and he'd come right back.  Finally, my late husband had to get up on the roof and wrap a piece of tar paper around the pipe until mating season was over.  I do hope we didn't serious effect his procreation....


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## SeaBreeze (Mar 18, 2018)

Heard the first little jackhammer this season.  This morning around 7am, a woodpecker was tapping on our rain gutters looking for a mate.  Don't think I've ever heard them as early as March, but it's been springlike weather here.  Still waiting for winter.


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## RadishRose (Mar 18, 2018)

I have heard stuffing some mothballs in the foot of a leg of pant hose or knee- high hose and hanging on a nail near a place where you don't want critters works well.


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## SeaBreeze (Mar 18, 2018)

Thanks Rose, they haven't done any damage over all these years, so I leave them alone.  They're equal opportunity alarm clocks, the bird soon left our house and we could hear the tapping on the house next door.   Funny you mentioned mothballs, I just hung up some in the foot of a pantyhose in our storage shed.  It's an old aluminum shed that we plan to tear down and replace in the future, so there's a lot of tiny holes where it was put together that yellow-jackets/wasps get in. 

 I read that the mothballs may help.  I have to do some cleaning in there, but the wasps are already starting to appear and I've been stung numerous times in past years.


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## RadishRose (Mar 18, 2018)

SeaBreeze said:


> Thanks Rose, they haven't done any damage over all these years, so I leave them alone.  They're equal opportunity alarm clocks, the bird soon left our house and we could hear the tapping on the house next door.   Funny you mentioned mothballs, I just hung up some in the foot of a pantyhose in our storage shed.  It's an old aluminum shed that we plan to tear down and replace in the future, so there's a lot of tiny holes where it was put together that yellow-jackets/wasps get in.
> 
> I read that the mothballs may help.  I have to do some cleaning in there, but the wasps are already starting to appear and I've been stung numerous times in past years.



Sea, I place a few mothballs, but not in hose, into corners of the  deck and sliders, also in the back of the bathroom vanity to keep away terrifying bugs that I can't even type the name of... but I know are  good bugs, just not in my house! I had to store the lot of the mothballs in a stainless steel container... they are not  good to breathe.

I also heard that taping down or gluing down a wad of crumpled aluminum foil is a deterrent to some creatures.


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## SeaBreeze (Mar 18, 2018)

Yeah, I know they're no good to breathe at all, and stopped using them inside the house years ago.  Also have to be careful so my pets don't get sick from them.  I may drop a few of them though in the hollow frame of my steel security door and front window, the wasps seem to go in there too.  Good idea with the foil, less toxic.  I remember hanging some aluminum plates in our fruit trees years back, didn't help at all with the birds eating the cherries.  Just became an eyesore, and took them down.


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