In the springtime, the beautiful tones of birdsong wake you at 5 a.m., and you pull the covers back over your head, trying to ignore the rat-tat-tat of the woodpecker that’s been visiting you daily for weeks. If you have a love-hate relationship with your local birds, you can live in peace. Prepare your home to welcome birds, yet deter them from the places where they don’t belong.

Prepare Your Home Gutters For Spring

If you’re trying to reduce bird damage to your home, you can begin in an unusual location: your gutters. Gutters without covers tend to get filled with debris. It may have been there all winter, left over from the fall leaves that filled your gutters. Gutter debris can also accumulate in the springtime as blossoms and debris from spring storms land on your roof and move down into the gutters. If you haven’t cleaned your gutters, they make the perfect place for birds and wasps to nest in the springtime. Before or during the spring, make sure that you clean your gutters, hire a maintenance company, or better yet, install gutter covers that remove this as a potential site for debris to accumulate.

Reduce Damage From Nesting and Feeding Birds

In the spring, your home could become a magnet for birds that love to nest in soft wood. Birds like woodpeckers feed on insects that live in rotting wood. They also hollow out holes in old trees or other rotten wood. If your siding or roofing is rotten, these birds see it as an area with good nesting potential. If you notice a bird making holes in your siding, it’s doing you a favor. It means that it’s time to check and, possibly, renew your siding or roofing. Check your siding and roofing annually to ensure that it’s not going soft. Make sure that your drainage supports a long-lasting roof. Maintain your drains and gutters so that water drains easily from the roof, and make sure that winter storms have not damaged your siding, roofing, or gutters.

Provide Appropriate Habitat For Birds

Birds can be wonderful to watch in your garden, and they also keep the population of insect pests low. If you’d like to keep your birds happy and keep them away from your home, consider adding low-lying and dense shrubs where they can nest. Fix garden drainage problems and remove puddles, but keep water in your garden. Birds appreciate a water source, and adding a bird bath to your garden will keep them visiting as the weather gets warmer. Provide a variety of plants that create seeds for birds to eat and materials for their nests, and you’ll find that with adequate alternative cover, your local birds will enjoy your garden habitat without damaging your home.

Looking for more information about renovating your home gutters, roofing, and more? Harry Helmet can help. With Gutter Helmet, you can reduce bird troubles and greatly reduce your exterior gutter maintenance. Contact us today and learn more about gutter guards for your home gutters.

Written by Del Thebaud