Austria: homeowners defend themselves against woodpeckers with dummy birds – panorama

Basically, this is good news from the bird front: an eagle owl was seen on the outskirts of Eschwege, sparrowhawks breed in Berlin, and the Live cam from the nest of the peregrine falcons at the Nuremberg Imperial Castle showed the first egg last Sunday at 5.43 p.m.

In Carinthia, on the other hand, woodpeckers seem to feel so comfortable that property owners are already concerned about the statics of their houses. It’s mating season, and it’s not just common among woodpeckers that the one who drums the loudest always gets the most attention. In addition, word seems to have gotten around among the animals that making a hole in a tree trunk takes two to three weeks. In a wall, a woodpecker apartment is ready in two to three days. According to the ORF, more and more people in Carinthia are therefore buying dummy birds to protect their property against benubs.

But the woodpeckers, as bird conservationists have now discovered, do not go into the forest when planning housing, where they could also kill off the bark beetle. No, they look for other houses. Those who don’t yet have a dummy woodpecker on the wall. Apart from providing all Carinthians with plastic birds, the only way out of this muddled situation is the widespread settlement of eagle owls, sparrow hawks and peregrine falcons, which are natural enemies of woodpeckers. However, the first demonstrators are already warning: rearmament is always the wrong way! So now you don’t know what to advise.

Read previous episodes of the column here. You can find more good news here.

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