How To Keep Woodpeckers Away From Your Home 2024 [Expert Tips]

Early morning drumming. Swiss cheese holes in your siding. Damage to your wooden patio furniture. These are the tell-tale signs of a woodpecker problem. If you're wanting to know how to get rid of a woodpecker and keep woodpeckers away, we're here to help.

So you’re wondering how to keep woodpeckers away from your home, you’ve come to the right place. Woodpeckers can be a major challenge; these pest birds cause substantial property damage and create a significant nuisance. Bird B Gone has the experience and the expertise to help you get rid of woodpeckers. We’ll help you keep them away from your home and property and keep them in the forest and trees where they belong.

Get to Know Woodpeckers

Woodpeckers are members of the Picidae family of birds, a group that also includes sapsuckers, piculets, and wrynecks. They can be found all over the world, except for Madagascar, the Australasia region, and extreme polar regions. Most woodpecker species live in forest habitats where they can forage along tree trunks and branches for insects, small animals, and tree sap. They have zygodactyl feet developed specifically for walking vertically up and down tree trunks and maintaining a strong grip; zygodactyl means that their first and fourth toes face backward and their second and third toes face front. Woodpeckers also typically have long, stiff tail feathers that they use to help maintain their balance while pecking. These remarkable birds are beautiful and captivating to watch. 

Woodpeckers are possibly most known for drumming; their loud, staccato cadences can be heard over long distances. The drumming of woodpeckers is fascinating. They use their hard, sharp bills to rapidly and repeatedly strike a hard surface in short, powerful bursts. These drum rolls are essentially non-verbal communication between woodpeckers. Each species of woodpecker has a unique drum roll pattern; the number of beats, the length of the pattern, the tempo, and the spaces between are distinct and recognizable. If you think your neighborhood woodpeckers have a talent for choosing the loudest surfaces for their morning drum sessions, you’re right. For woodpeckers, it’s all about resonance; hollow trees, gutters, drainpipes, and chimney covers are simply glorious for creating raucous drum rolls.

Woodpeckers are protected by state and federal migratory bird laws. Any woodpecker control or management system must comply with these laws. Ultimately, woodpeckers are an important part of maintaining a healthy ecosystem; their steady diet of insects prevents infestations that would otherwise destroy trees and forests. But, when a family of woodpeckers is waking you up every morning pecking Swiss cheese-like holes into parts of your home, it’s hard to remember to be grateful for them. 

How to Keep Woodpeckers Away from Your Home

Luckily, there are several steps you can take to learn how get rid of a woodpecker and our experts at Bird B Gone can help with any woodpecker problem you may have. A well-thought-out strategy that employs a combination of  woodpecker deterrents will keep the woodpeckers away from your home and property. Add and subtract bird control tools as needed to create a management program that works for you. 

Inspect The Woodpecker Damage First

First, make sure you to inspect the damage left by woodpeckers. Late winter is the best time to begin planning for woodpecker control. Woodpeckers are particularly active from February to June; effective woodpecker prevention requires that you take action before the birds move in and start causing trouble.

1. Remove Dead Trees. Woodpeckers love these snags as they are full of tasty bugs and worms and they make excellent nesting spots.
2. Inspect for Bugs. If insects are living in your wood siding, woodpeckers will destroy your home to find them. Have a reputable pest control company assess your home and clear out the problem. 

Choosing An Effective Woodpecker Deterrent

Bird B Gone carries several safe and humane products that are useful for deterring woodpeckers and that comply with state and federal laws. You can choose from solutions recommended for new woodpecker problems and options for medium to severe problems.

For New Woodpecker Problems 

The following solutions are perfect for newly formed woodpecker problems. If you are experiencing a medium to severe woodpecker problem, we recommend skipping to the following section below.

Woodpeckers are highly aware of perceived threats; scaring them away from your property is an effective way to prevent woodpeckers from becoming a nuisance. Scare tactics include the following:

1. Woodpecker Deterrent Kit is the ideal first step to get rid of woodpeckers. It includes a yellow inflatable scare balloon, red reflective flash tape and brackets for suspending tape and balloon.
2. Visual Woodpecker Deterrents, such as Flash Tape, Scare Balloons, and Bird B Gone’s Reflect-A-Bird™ create distractions that keep woodpeckers at bay. These products are easy to mount on your home or in your yard and use light and motion to frighten woodpeckers so they’ll look elsewhere for food and nesting.
3. Auditory Deterrents, such as the electric and solar-powered Bird Chase Super Sonic™, play pre-recorded distress and predator calls at 10-minute intervals to alert woodpeckers to danger and cause them to flee.

For Medium to Severe Problems

If scare tactics are not enough to frighten away your woodpeckers, you can add physical barriers and repellents to problem areas. These options exclude the birds physically or repel them by targeting their sense of taste and smell.

1. Heavy Duty Bird Netting blocks woodpeckers from accessing your siding. This visually subtle woodpecker netting is easy to install and easily removed.
2. BeakGuard™ is a harmless elastomeric acrylic finish available in a range of colors that can be painted onto a variety of surfaces including wood, fiber-cement, stucco, aluminum, and vinyl. Woodpeckers don’t like it at all; it immediately communicates a warning signal that sends woodpeckers packing.
3. Avian Block Repellent Pouches use the sense of smell to irritate woodpeckers. The pouches utilize grape seed extract to harmlessly repel birds with a grape aroma.

The experts at Bird B Gone are here to assist your development of an effective woodpecker management system. We’ll help you choose the products that will work for your specific situation. Layered solutions that take into account the nature and size of your property are the most likely to meet with lasting success. Since 1992, Bird B Gone, Inc. has led the industry in the development of innovative commercial and residential woodpecker control solutions. We have extensive experience in all facets of bird control and we are fully committed to providing our customers with the finest bird control products and strategies.  Our exhaustive supply of bird control solutions means you can design a woodpecker control strategy specifically tailored to both your budget and the needs of your commercial or personal property.

Get rid of woodpeckers for good. Contact us today to get expert advice on all our woodpecker control products.

CONTACT US: 800-392-6915 | NOBIRDS@BIRDBGONE.COM | WWW.BIRDBGONE.COM