Topic: Poll + Discussion: WS-2902A WS-2000 Bird Proofing Methods, Spikes, Scare Tape

[weather34]

yes you are correct stolen from my wifes kitchen as she has about 30 of em she hasnt noticed.

tried cocktail,wooden sticks but would become soft in rainfall and eventually snap

plastic cable ties would not last long here in peak uv periods here would turn soft in the heat and any wind present  they would just flop over and once cooled down turn brittle

[galfert]

Ambient Weather seems to have on their website the same looking bird spikes as Ecowitt. Seems to not be in stock yet but the order page is up.
https://www.ambientweather.com/amwewsbispki.html

[Mandrake]

I have had occasional bird issues on my old sensor array and took the opportunity to apply the ecowitt bird spikes when I got my new HP2550/WS2000 system.
So far so good, no erroneous rainfall counts which must mean the birds are staying away.
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[galfert]

Today I noticed that my bird spikes had fallen off. The entire thing just slipped down. A few things could have caused this. First I was not really confident that I had been able to apply enough force when I first installed them a few months ago. Second I installed them in the Winter. Now that we are having warmer temperatures I'm not sure if that affected it and the heat somehow enabled them to slide down as Metal (the band) expands with hotter temperatures. Also we've started to have some heavy rains and maybe the force of the rain pushed them down.

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In any case it is all there and I was able to make it tight again. This time I changed my installation method. Rather than try and tighten while in place I tightened it with the ring removed (just a bit at a time and test). Then I slipped it up from the bottom of the funnel to check for tightness. I repeated the process confident that I could still make it a bit tighter and still be able to slip it on. Now it feels much tighter than ever.

[kbellis]

FWIW - I've never seen a bird sitting on my weather station since erecting it four months ago today. It might be explained that there are many other nearby perches for them that don't have a spinning anemometer.

[galfert]

WS-2902A Osprey Array Weather Station Attacked by Hawk!
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I wish I had a better video quality of this incident. I'll need to work on fixing my camera exposure. But here (in video link below) you can see that bird spikes don't mean squat to a big hawk. Looks like it perched on the wind vane for a couple seconds. It then swoops down and catches an anole (lizard) and then flies back to the weather station! Sure my rain gauge is safe from the hawk so it seems. But I might find a anole parts in the rain gauge though. And what about that wind vane abuse? You can see in the video that the anemometer keeps spinning with the hawk perched on the wind vane.

YouTube video link:
https://youtu.be/DHViA6B0_oU

After this incident I think bird spikes are worth it. I think it prevented a rain gauge landing.

[droiddk]

WS-2902A Osprey Array Weather Station Attacked by Hawk!
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I wish I had a better video quality of this incident. I'll need to work on fixing my camera exposure. But here you can see that bird spikes don't mean squat to a big hawk. Looks like it perched on the wind vane for a couple seconds. It then swoops down and catches an anole (lizard) and then flies back to the weather station! Sure my rain gauge is safe from the hawk so it seems. But I might find a anole parts in the rain gauge though. And what about that wind vane abuse? You can see in the video that the anemometer keeps spinning with the hawk perched on the wind vane.

https://youtu.be/DHViA6B0_oU

After this incident I think bird spikes are worth it. I think it prevented a rain gauge landing.

Wow, that pipe is...flexible

Regards

[kbellis]

Not sure why you had to Photoshop the still image, but the differences in the perspective, lighting, and focus of the two objects; i.e., the bird and the PWS, aren't very convincing.

The video I believe.
[youtube]https://youtu.be/DHViA6B0_oU[/youtube]

Boing goes the mast!

Whatever happened to your telepole?

[galfert]

Yep pipe is flexible as it is just a temporary PVC pipe. I don't get much wind and I never see it sway really and so rain gauge isn't affected. The Telepole is still in the box in my garage. I'll get around to it soon.

BTW - I wasn't trying to be convincing with the photoshop image, I said so in the post. It was just for fun and because I didn't have a good video image. It also sensationalized the incident as most YouTubers do with click bait thumbnails. So I was going for that angle. I'm not monetizing the video. Again it was just for fun.

So nobody wants to talk about the bird? That is the first evidence I've seen of a bird on a WS-2902-ARRAY.

[Mandrake]

Damn, that's unlucky.
Must be an Osprey!

We have plenty of raptors flying around here but they prefer to stay high and dive on their unsuspecting prey, very rare to see them at ground level or perched.

[WA4OPQ]

I have to say that I'm rather disappointed with Ambient Weather.
The Ambient 2902 birdspikes are now back in stock.
But the price has been raised from $5.99 to $14.49  (but with free shipping)
Fortunately Ecowitt has them for $8.99
Just another reason to send more of my business to Ecowitt

[etaf]

i know this is an old thread, but thought I would post my situation
we have a lot of birds in our garden, encouraged with various bird feeders & a few trees. We often get birds on trim along top of conservatory, all areas of the bungalow roof, anything that they can stand on really
Having looked into getting a Davis Vue I saw they had bird spikes, and so I thought that would be a good idea to have a detoriant.
Following some advice here, i added some tie-wraps
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