Bird Scarers Alongside Right of Way.....Who do I Contact?

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Mudfukkle

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We have limited hacking within a reasonable distance, and now I discover from a friend, that one of the paths, which is a By Way Open to all Traffic, has bird scarers placed in the fields but right alongside it the path.

My friend's horse is perfectly ok with them going off (really loudly) as she rides by, but I know that my anxious nelly of a neddy won't be.

So it's made me want to avoid this route now, which is limiting my hacking even more :( wwyd? I've thought about the bhs, I'm a gold member so maybe they could help? Thing is, I don't know who owns the land, or whether they would be sympathetic enough to move the things further in the field so that they are not right alongside the path?

Please help .... many thanks
 
I'll get shot down by certain people on here for saying this but in your situation I would turn them off. If the landowner can't be bothered to put them away from the public then I wouldn't hesitate to do everybody a favour. Might make him put them further away from everybodies reach.
 
Not a lot you can do they are allowed to be there , you can contact the land owner and explain the issue with the scarers on a ROW used by horses but he need not move them he would however be laying himself open to being sued in event of an accident .
 
Goldenstar said:
Not a lot you can do they are allowed to be there , you can contact the land owner and explain the issue with the scarers on a ROW used by horses but he need not move them he would however be laying himself open to being sued in event of an accident .
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^^this^^
He's running a business, and has every right to protect his crops. However, he may choose to reposition them if you point it out to him.

Don't assume your horse will have a problem. Even flighty ones can get used to riding past them, particularly if they have a steady companion. The hardest bit is getting the rider to relax! Alternatively wait until they've gone off 3 times in succession... you've then usually got 15 minutes to make a break for it.
 
We have the same problem, surrounded by them. We tend to wait for them to go off then trot past , they go off three times every 2o mins. So far we have managed to dodge them :)
 
I personally would try to get my horse desensitised to them by standing further down the path and allowing the horse to hear them from a distance,
 
I have had a lot of experience with these devices.
Initially I would find out the contact details for the landowner concerned and write to him/her by 'Royal Mail Signed For delivery' (so that there is no doubt they received your letter) explaining the issues and asking him/her to move the Gas Gun Bird Scarer away from the public right of way or highway so that it fires away from it. Also advice him of the NFU guidelines on Bird Scarers to be found on:
http://www.nfuonline.com/assets/4662
We had a terrible accident three years ago when a Gas Gun Bird Scarer that was hidden behind a hedge adjoining a bridleway fired three times in quick succession causing a horse to throw its rider and bolt along the bridleway and on to a busy road. The horse was hit by a car and had to be put down as a result of it's injuries. The card driver and passengers were severely traumatised. The rider was hospitalised.
However well a horse is trained it may still react to sudden explosions. For example the Queens horse Burmese which was given to her by the Canadian Mounties and she used for the Trooping of the Colour Ceremony in London almost threw the Queen when someone fired a starting pistol at the ceremony.
If the land owner fails to move the bird scarer then ask the environmental control department of your district council to speak to him/her and if he/her fails to respond then to use the Enviromental Protection Act (as ammended) to take action against the landowner and enforce it's re-location or removal.
 
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OWLIE185 said:
I have had a lot of experience with these devices.
Initially I would find out the contact details for the landowner concerned and write to him/her by 'Royal Mail Signed For delivery' (so that there is no doubt they received your letter) explaining the issues and asking him/her to move the Gas Gun Bird Scarer away from the public right of way or highway so that it fires away from it. Also advice him of the NFU guidelines on Bird Scarers to be found on:
http://www.nfuonline.com/assets/4662
We had a terrible accident three years ago when a Gas Gun Bird Scarer that was hidden behind a hedge adjoining a bridleway fired three times in quick succession causing a horse to throw its rider and bolt along the bridleway and on to a busy road. The horse was hit by a car and had to be put down as a result of it's injuries. The card driver and passengers were severely traumatised. The rider was hospitalised.
However well a horse is trained it may still react to sudden explosions. For example the Queens horse Burmese which was given to her by the Canadian Mounties and she used for the Trooping of the Colour Ceremony in London almost threw the Queen when someone fired a starting pistol at the ceremony.
If the land owner fails to move the bird scarer then ask the environmental control department of your district council to speak to him/her and if he/her fails to respond then to use the Enviromental Protection Act (as ammended) to take action against the landowner and enforce it's re-location or removal.
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That's dreadful Owlie :( horrifying for all concerned. Many thanks for the nfu lead. I will have to try and track down the landowner somehow? I'll begin with the farm I get my local hay from, they might know (it's not them I know their land).

Thanks for all replies guys, I like the idea of standing her a distance from it so she can get used to it. I can also get the timings from doing that, then leg it..... :) Still a risk though - I'm not a risk taker these days lol.
 
We are surrounded by them too and we try to time our ride past the nearest one to our nearest bridleway. However, I do think that horses can get used to them. When I first got my newbie two years ago, any loud noise would send him into flight mode - not bolting but straight into canter. However, the most I get now is what we call his "worry scurry" which is a few hurried paces. He is very reactive to any sort of noise (fireworks, loud music from cars etc) but I have also found that since I started adding salt to his feed, he reacts with less panic.

Our local farmers tend to use a lot of gasguns and a lot of visual scarers - scarecrows, flapping bags, spinners, birds on bendy poles etc. The horses like to have a good look at them but then tend to ignore them once they've had a token spook the first time.

As someone else said, the key thing is not to overreact as a rider. They make me jump out of the saddle but once I've landed, I tell my horse two more (or three more in some cases) to come and give him a scratch.

Unfortunately it is not so easy with my smaller dog who refuses to go out in daylight hours unless I force her as she is terrified of them.

We do have a joke on our yard that our seasons aren't Spring, Summer etc, but pheasant, gas gun, fly and tractor season...as soon as one stops, the other starts!
 
Either find out who the landowner is and go ask him politely if he wouldn't mind repositioning them, or desensitise your horse to them.

I'm not a fan, but I live in one of the most arable counties in the country and I'd be pretty daft to not have put the time in to getting my horses used to them.
 
I would be hacking past daily until the horse ignores them. If the rider stays calm they don't normally do more than startle a bit. Horses need to learn not to be silly about loud noises. I don't avoid bird scarers when hacking and I have been very glad of the training, my horse stood calmly when a vehicle backfired nearby recently and was calm when we encountered someone shooting rabbits.
 
bonny said:
I'll get shot down by certain people on here for saying this but in your situation I would turn them off. If the landowner can't be bothered to put them away from the public then I wouldn't hesitate to do everybody a favour. Might make him put them further away from everybodies reach.
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You will be laying yourself open to being prosecuted if you interfere with them ,the landowner is perfectly within their rights to put them where ever they like on their property and what a lot forget is the ROW is still their property!
I think they are mad to put them there ,it certainly is not somewhere we would site them . They may however have a logical reason .
Surely it would be easier if the OP tried to establish whos land it is and try to explain , getting officialdom involved will only make things worse potentially and there is nothing they can do anyhow.

Owlie what reaction do you think your signed for letter will bring about ,why be confrontational about it as it is less likely to achieve the response you want , The NFU guidlines are exactly what it says on the tin and nothing thats mandated.

From experience the gas guns actually more often make a bigger impact on the rider than the horse.
 
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OWLIE185 said:
However well a horse is trained it may still react to sudden explosions. For example the Queens horse Burmese which was given to her by the Canadian Mounties and she used for the Trooping of the Colour Ceremony in London almost threw the Queen when someone fired a starting pistol at the ceremony..
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I would not say that Burmese nearly threw the queen. He spooked a bit and was fairly quickly brought under control despite the ensuing panic (the human reaction to a shot fired in central London is very different to the reaction of a human who knows that a bird scarer is no threat).
 
Unfortunately the real problem is when a rider is unaware that their is a bird scarer sited at a specific location and it explodes several times in quick succession. A landowner must be pretty daft to locate a gas gun bird scarer close to a public right of way or highway or their actual intention is indeed to intimidate horse riders not to use a specific route.
Yesterday I came across a new type of Gas Gun Bird Scarer which on repeatedly exploding three times launches a virtual missile which travels an estimated distance of about 500 metres each time it explodes. If this was sited to fire across a public right of way or byway then I believe that every horse would seriously react to it.
These devices need only be used while the Oil Seed Rape is initially sprouting for the first 8 - 10 weeks and they most certainly do not need to be used after this period of time as animals will not eat this crop. In addition DEFRA commissioned a report on them the summary of which stated that they are ineffective.
A number of my local land owners tell me that they are nothing but a nuisance and only antagonise their residential neighbours and they frown upon the landowners and farmers that use them.
 
OWLIE185 said:
Unfortunately the real problem is when a rider is unaware that their is a bird scarer sited at a specific location and it explodes several times in quick succession. A landowner must be pretty daft to locate a gas gun bird scarer close to a public right of way or highway or their actual intention is indeed to intimidate horse riders not to use a specific route.
Yesterday I came across a new type of Gas Gun Bird Scarer which on repeatedly exploding three times launches a virtual missile which travels an estimated distance of about 500 metres each time it explodes. If this was sited to fire across a public right of way or byway then I believe that every horse would seriously react to it.
These devices need only be used while the Oil Seed Rape is initially sprouting for the first 8 - 10 weeks and they most certainly do not need to be used after this period of time as animals will not eat this crop. In addition DEFRA commissioned a report on them the summary of which stated that they are ineffective.
A number of my local land owners tell me that they are nothing but a nuisance and only antagonise their residential neighbours and they frown upon the landowners and farmers that use them.
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You show very little understanding for the reason that gas guns are used. One they are just not used on OSR but many crops and I would suggest if they have only just appeared they are on a fresh drilled crop and most likely to keep off croiws.
Gas guns are very rarely used on OSR until the winter months as pigeons very rarely are a problem at the time the crop is sown however during the winter they have no other feed and congregate into flocks of several thousands with a lot of pigeons migrating from the continent. They will devastate a OSR crop in a very short time. At this time of year the OSR is pushing up its main stem with the initial flower buds on that are particularly attractive to pigeons to feed on hence the need for protection now. We only put out our gas guns 2 weeks ago ! Bye the way the rockets you mention are about a pound each so we dont fire them around for the fun of it! we get through 1500 in an average season.
Farmers have several different tools for bird control and some seasons they are not enough believe me when they start on a crop the financial consequences are severe .gas guns are usually only used as a last resort because the pigeons soon get desensitised to them as well.
Can you please elaborate on your accusation that the farmers are only doing it to intimidate riders not to use the ROWs its language like that that makes the situation worse .

I hope this professional explanation for using them will make you think again ,as your comments contain many inaccuracies that needed pointing out !

Thinking about the fact that they are alongside the ROW it could be construed that at least you should be fore warned rather than hidden in a hedge or ditch and just going off!
 
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There are a few on some of our bridleways and although they are quite far from the path they still make me jump out of my skin, one of my horses just jumps like I do but the other one often leaps about but its not that bad.
 
My horse is well used to gun fire, the neighbour is for ever firing at clays. However, that is not the same as having a gas gun going off behind a hedge just as you ride past, and I wouldn't be too happy about it. There was one ride I had to go past, so I counted how long the gaps were as we approached, then waited for it go off and then trotted past.

Owlie's reply was comprehensive. Hope you get a good result.
 
Orangehorse said:
My horse is well used to gun fire, the neighbour is for ever firing at clays. However, that is not the same as having a gas gun going off behind a hedge just as you ride past, and I wouldn't be too happy about it. There was one ride I had to go past, so I counted how long the gaps were as we approached, then waited for it go off and then trotted past.

Owlie's reply was comprehensive. Hope you get a good result.
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Owlies reply was totally misinformed!
 
RubysGold said:
I personally would try to get my horse desensitised to them by standing further down the path and allowing the horse to hear them from a distance,
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Exactly what I would do. Good training for the horse. Plenty of situations where an unexpected loud noise could occur. Good for them to get used to it.
 
I would think the best thing to do would be to find out who the farmer is, and maybe try dropping in one day to talk to him and ask if he would mind moving them away from the ROW a bit it would really help you and help prevent getting any horses getting scared and tramping all over his crops.
 
wench said:
I would think the best thing to do would be to find out who the farmer is, and maybe try dropping in one day to talk to him and ask if he would mind moving them away from the ROW a bit it would really help you and help prevent getting any horses getting scared and tramping all over his crops.
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totally agree with this !!!! Its always easier to explain why face to face,it could be he is not aware theres an issue with them being where they are . Most of us farmers are approachable when the cage has not been rattled to loudly!!!

I dont know any that would put them out to intentionally put people off as that would be illegal,and I for one would never condone it!
 
im sure if you talk to the land owner they would unnderstand, i think its pretty daft to put them so close to ROW not just from a horse point of view but i imagine it would scare many unaware dogs, cyclists and walkers too if it were to go off right next to them. On the plus side i do think horses desensitize to them very quickly, ours dont bat an eyelid at them as luckily we have them in fields surrounding our yard, we also have a few guys that come and take care of our rabbit population, i think its good for horses to get used to such noises and its certainly not half as scary as a car misfiring or a motorbike speeding past.
 
If you listen for the gas gun you soon get to know what firing pattern it's set on. Ours goes off every 20 mins and fires twice in quick succession. You can then plan your ride a bit.
 
There's two ways of dealing with this.

1. Go to the farmer concerned armed with a bottle of Fire-Water and explain what the problem is (the average farmer wouldn't have thought about horses or anything like that beforehand, bless 'em), and say that you appreciate how difficult it is with pesky birds etc, but would he mind awfully if they were positioned away from where people ride. Offer to help if needs be.

Option 2. Go the legislative route - others on here have suggested how

Option 3. Use it as an opportunity to get your horse thoroughly de-sensitised. We've had bird scarers put in the field right next to us - they were poorly set so that they were still going off at 10pm and again at 5am :( - but by golly the horses soon got thoroughly de-spooked and didn't bat a hair. Of course, if you are on a bridleway and are not expecting it, even the most ploddy horse is going to react - and I do think the farmer was thoughtless IMO to put birdscarers right on the path. But like I say, he probably didn't even think. With these things there is usually a pattern and if you can listen to it and predict it, that helps a lot. Also you can use FB and other social media to warn other riders. But personally I think it IS unacceptable for them to be right on the bridlepath. At the very very least warning notices should be put up. Like, "bridle" path means there might be horses on it, right???
 
OWLIE185 said:
Unfortunately the real problem is when a rider is unaware that their is a bird scarer sited at a specific location and it explodes several times in quick succession. A landowner must be pretty daft to locate a gas gun bird scarer close to a public right of way or highway or their actual intention is indeed to intimidate horse riders not to use a specific route.
Yesterday I came across a new type of Gas Gun Bird Scarer which on repeatedly exploding three times launches a virtual missile which travels an estimated distance of about 500 metres each time it explodes. If this was sited to fire across a public right of way or byway then I believe that every horse would seriously react to it.
These devices need only be used while the Oil Seed Rape is initially sprouting for the first 8 - 10 weeks and they most certainly do not need to be used after this period of time as animals will not eat this crop. In addition DEFRA commissioned a report on them the summary of which stated that they are ineffective.
A number of my local land owners tell me that they are nothing but a nuisance and only antagonise their residential neighbours and they frown upon the landowners and farmers that use them.
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Are you seriously suggesting that bird scarers now fire missiles out of them? No wonder we get a name as neurotic horsey women, it's like Chinese whispers on cocaine.
 
RunToEarth. I can assure you that the new style gas gun bird scarer fires virtual missiles as I passed one a few days ago. Each time it explodes (and this one fired three times in quick succession) a virtual missile was released and whooshed past me. I will inspect it more closely on foot but in effect it appears to create the impression of an actual missile being fired but without one actually physically existing.
Unfortunately there are a number of land owners who refuse to respond to requests do anything about the siting of Gas Gun Bird Scarers despite there being every chance of them causing an accident because they are either adjacent to a public right of way or fire directly at a public highway. Unfortunately in every group of people there will always be those that fail to comply with a sensible request and it is these landowners and their Gas Gun Bird Scarers that pose a threat to members of the public. It is not just the danger to the horse and horse rider but if the rider is unseated and the horse then collides with a pedestrian, bicycle or other vehicle. If all landowners used these devices sensibly then there would not be a problem. Unfortunately in this area we have gas gun bird scarers deployed almost all the year round.
 
Popsdosh The Gas Gun Bird Scarers have been exploding here since September. I am not talking about the rockets but a new type of Gas Gun Bird Scarer that fires virtual missiles. Unfortunately despite being in contact with a couple of local landowners and requesting them to re-position their Gas Gun Bird Scarers which could easily be done they fail to respond at all so my assumption is that they just wish to be 'bloody minded' and are doing it to intimidate local horse riders and residents. Unfortunately as I stated above there will always be a minority that spoils it for the rest but is this minority that can cause a serious accident. These devices need to be regulated so as to avoid accidents. It is impossible to take any preventive action if these devices are hidden behind a hedge and there is no indication that they are there.
 
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