Potential Bird Protection Failure

Hi folks, I've had my solar installation for about 2 years now, no problems whatsoever, until now.

I've recently started to notice a lot of noise coming from the roof and confirmed that, somehow, pigeons have managed their way under the solar panels, even though I've had bird protection from day one. It's audible enough to the point of hearing it through my headphones unless I turn the volume really high up.

Anyone with a similar experience or to offer any feedback on this? I can't find any info on whether there's a "warranty period" for birdproof installation so I'm a bit lost on what to do next.

danielnepomuceno I'd suggest approaching your installer in the first instance, to see what they have to say. Worst case is that they say no, but maybe you'll get lucky.

danielnepomuceno If its under 2 years and you used an MCS registered installer then its on them to fix it (2 years warranty on workmanship).

Over two years and its a manufacturer's warranty. Problem with that is the warranty is only for the part itself and it's up to you to get it fitted - with all the costs associated with that.

We had a leak on a gutter seal with an in-roof install last year and the part itself was under £100. However to get to it required multiple PV panel/tile removal and cost nearer £1k for the installer, probably more given subsequent remedial work required.

Our panels were installed in 2023. This year we have 2 pairs of Doves.

Our installer went belly up just after the install.

Over the last week we found increasing quantities of dropped nesting materials, feathers and the odd egg. Local doves and pigeon dove cross have started to colonise our panel array.

We found www.britishbirdcontrol.co.uk. What they do and the reviews seem all you could want. We agreed immediately for disinfection, eradication, cleaning up, and securing the panels. Our house has 2 floors and an panels array.

I was prepared for a severe pain in my wallet and was delighted at the quote of just £450.

I've booked them too. My panels started attracting pigeons last year. It died down for a bit but now is back to quite a problem. It's the mess made in our sideway that is most noticeable but the sound and the potential for futher problems means

I've booked them too. My panels started attracting pigeons last year. It died down for a bit but now is back to quite a problem. It's the mess made in our sideway that is most noticeable but the sound and the potential for further problems means I want it sorted out now.

Edit sorry about the double post - hit return too early.

I should have added, they want to know the number of panels, whether the house is detached etc, and require pictures of the array and the array to the ground for H&S assessment. If clear (ours is) it will be two men and a ladder.

The mess is potentially the least of the problems as the panels can provide nice nesting material too.

Yesterday I also jury rigged a Karcher pressure spray; they didn't like that. I had a 5m Wolf pole, I gaffer taped the Karcher trigger and bound it to the pole. I also have an extended Karcher wand with a bent end to car wheel arches etc. I left me wife in charge of the Karcher on/off and the water. Once set up I braced and she switched on water and then power.

At the end of a 5m shaft the moment is huge. I could have been throw off the steps. Fortunately I was on a platform ladder and leant into the pressure. It cleared the gutter and scared the **** from the birds. When power was off I had to brace the other way.

For our troubles they dropped a fresh egg on the patio. We had to use bleach to clear the splat!

[unknown]

You probably want to read about nesting birds and disturbing their in use nests…

kram Indeed. Its a criminal offence* to remove active birds nests without a licence to do so.

If its pigeons then you're basically screwed until early September.

*Intentionally take, damage or destroy the nest of any wild bird while it is in use or being built.

kram British Bird Control are licenced.

The only evidence of an in-use nest was 'splat' as we cannot see any nests.

Found a temporary expedient, Bongo drums.

We had tried shouting and waving our arms to no effect, even shooting (to miss) even got a distainful look. Drums however had an immediate effect.

Well not drums exactly but the cardboard box that a garden sprayer came it. For bird fancies this is not disturbing the nest but shooing away the optimistic males.

What you need is a sparrow hawk ...

Slartibartfast
Just like this one! Was in our garden last October. Sadly not seen her since.

The Red Kites will do this too. But only 2 pigeons have succumbed in the last 12 months. I absolutely hate clearing the dead pigeons up.

Our lawn was covered in small white feathers last week thanks to our Sparrow Hawk. I saw it on the fence observing the bird feeders and for some reason no birds around. I think our resident Dove and cross bred Dove/Pigeons were thinned out by one. We do have red kites but they don't come into the gardens. Our 'flock had numbered 11, they are all white though some of the Pigeon/Doves have grey feathers under wings etc.

Did have a friendly Crow on the roof today. They may not kill Pigeons but they are partial to eggs.

Our flock are mostly Stock Doves. These are usually field birds but we seem to have a colony on our roof. There are Wood Pigeons and Collared Doves but these are not a nuisance and not on the roof.

Anti-Bird Netting was done this morning, took about 30 minutes, gutter cleaned and accessible nest material removed. There was a Jackdaw net. The dove material had probably fallen out.

I'm glad that the problem is being addressed for you.

My first visit wasn't very good. My array is too large for them to clear it properly and they have asked for some of the panels to be removed. So I'm now talking with my installer to see what might be possible at what cost 😱

@Windy Miller mine is a simple 3 horizonal over 5 vertical panels. Lucky as we don't have an installer. They went belly up not long after I had wrung the necessary documentation for exporting from them. Others were not as lucky with the company crashing after deposits had been taken. One clue was the early deposit and payment when installers were on site and before work began.

We had to wait until our pigeon chick fledged and flew off in February before our anti-bird barrier could be re-inforced. So far so good just over a year on.

Windy Miller After the abortive attempt to address my pigeon problem in April I hope it is now sorted.

In my previous message I said the array was too large for the bird people to remove the pigeons.

I had my installers back to remove all the panels (17 in total), the bird people cleared all the mess (9 active nests, several dead pigeons), the panels are back on and working again and the bird proofing fitted.

£900 for scaffolding, £925 for panels removal/refitting, £650 for cleaning bird mess and bird proofing, £495 to the Government (VAT). Pretty much wiped out 2 years of savings.

If you're having panels fitted I would strongly advise fitting bird protection at the same time.

[unknown] Wow, what an epic job.

We don’t have bird proofing on our panels. When we had the FIT array installed 7 years ago, bird proofing wasn’t a “thing” and we haven’t had any issues with birds nesting underneath.

We do have sparrow hawks, but I also have a wife who likes to feed the pigeons as well as the local rats it seems 🙁

£900 for scaffolding, £925 for panels removal/refitting, £650 for cleaning bird mess and bird proofing, £495 to the Government (VAT). 

Ouch - I'm kind of glad my cat is just Satan with fur to be honest as that would sting a little.

Our bird netting installed last month has been ripped out by Jackdaws and thrown contemptuously to one side. A cable that was in their way has also been pulled out.

[unknown]

I assume they warrant their products as fit for purpose/ fault free for a reasonable period?

Bird proof heavy gauge plastic coated wire mesh was fitted to both our solar arrays when they were installed. £750 for phase 1 (10 panels) & £550 for phase 2 (5 panels) - all part of our solar quote. We had a few issues with broken roof tiles during the install due to heavy footed panel installers but thankfully I had some spare tiles & no charges to replace them. The Bird protection guy didn't want to take the blame for broken tiles so he downed tools until the panel guys came back to replace the broken tiles.
As an aside, I also had my roof cleaned (scraped & herbicide spray - not pressure washed) before the solar install to clear the 38 year build up of moss & lichen.
Definitely worth doing bird protection at day 1 so no extra cost for scaffolding as an add-on. We have issues with Starlings in gutters & a few Pigeons. We have Red Kites locally but they don't come down to garden level so are not much of a deterrent as far as I can see.

kram we have a 10 year warranty so will see how long that takes. Original installation was 2 men, a ladder, and 30 minutes.

We found two broken clips the day after they left. At the time we didn't know if they were broken during fitting .....

Pretty clear now that they were broken. Will recline in a deckchair with some binos when they return.

[unknown]

Fingers crossed..

Had mine done a few weeks back. Two guys came up with scaffolding and installed the kits I brought from Amazon.

I got up there as well and cleared out the guttering whilst wearing a p3 rated mask. Completely clogged.

It's been blessed silence ever since. wish I'd have done it 2 years ago when the panels went up.

Cost me about £800 altogether.

Had the anti-bird netting fixed today. It takes only a few minutes. The work is done from ladders rather than scaffolding. Their biggest problem is weather, particularly strong winds. Today was the first forecast window though still breezy.

The birds involved were Jackdaws. Just the one family and their chick had flown. There was evidence for a second brood. Once the first bird has flown they do a major refurb and use the old nesting material to build a new nest. This appeared to be in progress. The pair are observing from a neighbour's apple tree, probably assessing how to get in.

Apart from replacing the mesh and additional clips, he used tie wraps as well. We shall see.

Ours is stainless steel mesh. Worked so far

Ours is stainless steel mesh. Worked so far

@SimonClarke depends on your birds. The team is coming back on Friday as there may be a baby on the nest. They looked and didn't see it but the parents weren't pleased.

They threw the plastic catches on the fitter.

I've also installed wire mesh all around the panels (12 panels) last month. Cost was about £100 for a ladder extension tool, a roll of mesh and pack of clips from eBay. I've installed it myself, used tall ladder.
Pigeons were shocked by the sudden eviction. Finally, I have silence, and no mess.

https://imgur.com/a/IFVxTYz

I've also installed wire mesh all around the panels (12 panels) last month. Cost was about £100 for a ladder extension tool, a roll of mesh and pack of clips from eBay. I've installed it myself, used tall ladder.
Pigeons were shocked by the sudden eviction. Finally, I have silence, and no mess.

https://imgur.com/a/IFVxTYz

bRhFDKtjRMK9 Oh for knees that can support you climbing a ladder.

Jackdaws winning 2-1. After the repair team trapped a fledgling under the panel the parents were a mite annoyed and let everyone know. This morning they seem to have effected an escape. One bottom clip was removed yesterday, This morning one of the side nets has been unclipped and the fledgling released.

Plan B with cable ties failed. Plan C is a complete refit.

At least your birds are all on the out side! We had to catch and evict pigeons from our loft. Apparently a design flaw on all the houses in our development, where they failed to close all the soffits - some neighbours managed to land a class action against the developer, but the statute of limitations kicked in before we moved in.
I caught 3, stepping from rafter to rafter with my child's rockpooling net. Then we discovered an extra bit of inaccessible-to-humans loft above our dormer window, which is where they were all hiding out. We ended up having to cut a new hatch from below. It was nasty up there.
So yes, bird protection was a numero uno priority at panel installation time!

Josephiah
That box would make an excellent hedgehog 🦔 feeding station.

Tenkaykev Probably not around Inverness though 😉

Vestas We do get them round here. I'm told there are badgers nearby which used to come into our garden - but not once we'd moved in with our noisy children!

Josephiah Surprised hedgehogs survive the winters there, I know they can survive on the west coast as they moved/culled a load on Benbecula/South Uist because they were decimating bird populations.

There's far too many badgers in the area we're in, they just end up as roadkill. I see 1 or 2 dead on a 5 mile stretch of single carriageway every day from May to September. There's at least 14 setts within a mile of our house and that's just the ones I've seen. Competition for food is pretty brutal.

We digress 🙂

[unknown] A whole new meaning to Pigeon Loft. (or perhaps the original)

New repair today. The two side nets replaced with a different technique. They found a bird inside which flew off. From the flight pattern it had previously flown the nest and returned.

They could not remove the nest as it was too strong. As long it was not Mum on a new brood. They reckon they may lose interest after 6 weeks.