Bird Netting & Control in Boulder Creek, CA

Local Context

In Boulder Creek, Acorn Woodpeckers Treat Redwood Siding Like a Granary Tree

Acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) live in family groups and store acorns by the thousand in tight-fitting holes drilled into a single tree, called a granary. Boulder Creek sits in mixed redwood, Douglas-fir, and oak woodland, which is exactly their habitat. The Forest Springs neighborhood up Highway 236 is known locally as The Acorns, and the birds earned it. When a group decides a building beats a snag, they go after the soft wood: redwood and cedar siding, fascia, trim boards, and foam-backed panels on newer construction.

The damage compounds because it is never one hole. A granary face can carry hole after hole across a few square feet, and every one of them is a path for water behind the siding on a wall that already takes the heaviest winter rain in our service area. Wet siding then becomes the moisture condition carpenter ants and dampwood termites are looking for. Rebuilt homes are not exempt either — fresh, soft, unweathered fascia drills easily.

Other birds here take ledges instead of walls. Barn and cliff swallows build mud nests under the deep eaves and porch overhangs mountain cabins are framed with, and the timber storefronts along Central Avenue offer a covered ledge every few feet. Swallows are protected while nesting, so timing decides the job — exclusion goes up before they arrive or after the young have fledged, never in between.