Testing and setting up a Bird Scarer Kite. What's it like? 

Once saw one of these, or similar, a few years back. It was flying over Billingate fish market. I was watching it for quite some time, from my car, before I realised it was just a kite. Appeared to be doing a grand job.

A couple of vineyards I know use this instead of nets, according to them it saves them a lot of time and money and they work great!

I’ve used two of these on my meadow, a 7 metre & a 5 metre to scare Egyptian geese away! Worked great to start with, then the problems started. Mainly the kite twisted around the pole, even at the angle they recommend, so tightly it was a real pain untwisting it again. I tried swivels on the pole tip instead of tying the cord direct to the pole & still it twisted tightly around the pole. The other problem with these kites is the build quality. The 5 metre kite ripped apart fairly quickly making it impossible to fly. I’ve ordered an eagle kite hoping that will work better & last longer! On their own these kites don’t scare everything away indefinitely. You need to use other scare tactics too. The best solution I’ve found is to use led recovery flashing light bars. Since setting two of them up all the geese have gone with no returns which is great as last year I had 26 of them & they soon ate all of my stallions grass meaning I had to buy hay in all year round. They work during the day but the main thing is they can’t sleep at night on the pond & the different flash patterns mean they don’t get used to them & being low power they last 3/4 days between changing the 12v batteries. Some are quite expensive but I found some 23” Cob Led Emergency Warning Flash Strobe for £21.99 on eBay & I couldn’t be happier!!

Thank you for uploading this. My rig is almost identical to yours, however the bird keeps getting tangled around the pole. I've since followed the instructions correctly and placed the pole at an angle, however I think it won't make much of a difference. I'm going to try to use a swivel to connect the string to the end of the rod rather than tying the string to it.

Good idea

Make sure it’s double jabbed and maintains a two metre distance from the vines!

How do you stop them tangling around the pole

I wonder if a nice big owl box in that tree line overlooking your lovely vineyard would attract an owl family? That would keep things in check as well perhaps.amd shift some rabbits for you too? Wonderful videos, thank you so much for making them.

I feel like all those grass clippings at the base of your vines would very likely contribute to mold and fungus issues

As Rob said, maybe encourage some real birds of prey to live close to your vineyard. Kites look good but I am assuming they are unreliable if you don't check them daily

I have neighbours here in this residential built up area that feed about 50 gulls (I'm 40 miles from the sea) and about 100 starlings multiple times every single day and the laughingly named Environmental Health Department (really the encourage bird shit and rats department) of the local council consider that it's all fine and they should carry on unhindered, even though every neighbour beside them has written to council saying that they do not want this. We even had rats because the birds drop food everywhere and this has been going on for years now and the local elected reps just ignore you. So drives you round the bend and now having to look at getting one of these kites because of my awful neighbour and worse than useless government and local council. I did initially ask them to stop and they reported me (malicious accusation) to the police for harassment (how dare I ask them to stop), so this is what I'm up against. The guy doing the feeding is a genuine nutter though and supported by his similarly mad wife. I didn't want to be having to set up bird deterrents as there is absolutely no bird problem when they are away but I guess there is no other option or none that I know of. Meanwhile I have contacted another Local Councillor but I expect to be ignored again. Wish I just had a vineyard to protect!