Ten years ago our neighbor remodeled her home and used a new and popular stucco system for most of her homes siding. The attractive finish was not only attractive to the eye it became attractive to woodpeckers for some strange reason and they began poking holes the size of tennis balls on many of the surfaces.

She tried everything short of rifle fire to discourage the pesky birds.

She was told by so called experts that it only happened in the springtime and only by females. Nobody she talked to could explain why it was only women birds that found the stucco so appetizing and her shouting, waving of red flags, garden hose blasts or throwing tennis balls at them did any good.

So she hired contractors to climb up and patch the craters and even had them install pocket comb wire gizmos on the horizontal areas to keep birds of any kind from landing.

Still the flickers fond a way to poke fun at her.

In desperation she decided to have the whole shebang removed, including the foam layer. That is when they found that water had gotten into the foam and penetrated the plywood sheathing underneath. The peckers somehow sensed that rotting wood made a dandy dinner table for termites. Hence the Swiss cheese look.

The company which made the original product has gone our of business and she is stuck for a mega bundle for a renewal. This time she will use the old fashioned stucco method of toweling on concrete.

This is going to disappoint a lot of woodpeckers.

Bird inspector Jerry Robinson is now trying to find out how to keep crows from cawing loudly in the early morning. He can be reached via publisher@robinsonnews.com