A few videos...

 This is from Loreto, and there are a bunch of great birds there in the estuary.  

A night Heron

A wilson's Plover

And a double crested Cormorant that is trying to cool off a bit by panting.

In defense of Pelicans

Pelicans are, of course, wonderful and beautiful birds.  They are big, heavy, and love to eat fish. 

 "An amazing thing is the pelican, his bill can hold more than his belly-can!"

They do cool plunge dives and reach out with their necks to scoop up fish and its very cool...

But when you are anchored in a harbor somewhere, and if you aren't careful, they will land on the bow of your boat and poop all over the deck.  

Once you have a splattering of white paint on the deck, and the smell to go with it, the next one comes along and sees a bright billboard welcoming them.  And so soon you have what is known as a "pelican boat".  This is not a desirable thing.  Everything corrodes from their poop, so the boat becomes broken much quicker, and it becomes very obvious that nobody is home.  

If nobody is home, then people cruising by on small boats might decide to come aboard and see if there is anything to take.  It looks like an abandoned boat, ripe for the plunder.  

So, in order to leave my boat for a few weeks while working, I have decided to put up my pelican defenses.  I use fishing line, strung along above the places they would like to land, about 6 inches up, and very tight.  

Here is a picture of the solar panels with the lines strung along the outside edges.  I'll take this down when I get back and I'm moving around.  It blocks some of the light from the panels, so its less efficient, but since I'm not running a lot of electrical loads it isn't a problem.  

I'm a little concerned that the pelicans will just land inside the fishing line area, since its a big flat space, but I think they won't like having the line there to hit their wings when they come in.  

Also, they need a place to start, as in on the edge, and then get more comfortable.  So hopefully this will prevent them.  In the middle of the panels I have a flag flapping around, so I hope that persuades them to keep off the panels altogether.

The most tricky part of the boat is usually the bow.  Many boats I see have pelicans that come in, coast along and perch on the bow railing (or pulpit) and look happily down into the water from the front of the boat.  They have great visibility, and easy take-off spot, and usually they are standing on a round steel tube about 1" wide, so its good footing.  I have seen them land on the cables that make up the life-lines too.  In order to stop that, I've rigged up my fishing line about 6 inches up from the lifelines and the bow pulpit, and it is strung really tight (its braided fishing line-dyneema).  

This extends back around the boat as well.

Then I have some swinging lines hanging down to keep them nervous if they try to land on deck.  

At the masthead I have a spike that extends above my wind instruments, and it has been there for several years to good effect.  (for frigatebirds)

So, why don't I use CDs or zip ties?  Or a mop or rake?  I've seen people use flashing tape or CDs as deterrents, and I think they only work for a little bit until the scare wears off.  The birds may be initially afraid of the flashing, but after they fly by enough and discover that it doesn't do anything, they will land anyways, and once they poop, the invitation is more powerful than the scare.  I've seen many boats with flashing things, and the birds ignore them easily.  

Zip ties I think are an excellent idea, but done poorly, since they are not strong enough to be landed on and not bend out of the way.  If they were spikes, the birds would not be able to land, but they can push the zip ties down and then its a solve-able problem for them.  I've seen lots of boats with zip ties that didn't work.

So my philosophy is to start on all the areas that the birds would first land on, and make those impossible to land.  And hopefully impossible despite a bird trying to land or pushing on the thing, or wind and boat rocking moving the deterrent.  It has to be robust.  

The second defense is to have somewhat scary things (like swinging ropes) that are nearby the areas they want to land, just to keep them nervous about trying.  I could use shiny ribbons, but I also like to make it look like I am still at home, and a few swinging ropes seems to be about right.

So hopefully the pelicans will keep off my boat, and also hopefully the thieves will be unattracted as well.