Here’s A New Term for You: “Bird Deterrent”! Or, Caution Geese: You Are Entering A Dori Pole Zone!

With Consort’s festival Dori Pole Pennant System, we receive quite a few questions similar to, “Does the Dori Pole really keep birds away from wherever it’s installed?” The amazing answer is, “Yes!” it really does do all that! I’m not even exactly sure how we discovered that it had that effect on birds. I believe it was about three years ago when someone, who had bought one to put on his lake dock just for the color and flutter, wrote to us with, “Did you know that the pennants seem to discourage geese from loitering under them?” Well, no we really hadn’t made the connection ourselves, surprisingly enough.


After that email we immediately did a bit of research that resulted in the honest conclusion that birds, any type of birds, including geese, ducks, blue heron (unfortunately!) and so on, just don’t want to be under that flowing pennant and are probably also frightened or distracted by the large moving shadow that is created with the movement. With our own lake dock in Michigan, where we have three pole installed at 20’ intervals, I then realized that we hadn’t had any of the typical goose mess that we’d had in the past. And furthermore, this past spring, I hadn’t quite gotten the Dori Poles up quickly enough after we had installed our canopied Shore Station that the birds had started to make nests under canopy. We’d been away from the cottage for longer than usual in the spring and when we’d returned we had birds constantly flying under the canopy. I then installed the poles and pennants and the birds never returned.

So, there you go. A bird deterrent! And, with no obnoxious chemicals or funny noises. Yes, a "humane" bird deterrent.

Of course, the tall, elegant and colorful pennant product was not invented to be a bird deterrent, but it has become a main selling point for use at lake homes and cottages. I’m told that a few golf courses have installed Dori Poles strategically behind ponds, etc. (but hopefully away from the normal line of play -“normal” for me covers all of the course, nearby woods, parking lots and nearby tennis courts…).

We do know, however, that a gentle wind is also required for the effect to work. That is, at least three mile per hour breeze will do the trick. A lake friend of ours installed three poles with bright red pennants and immediately sent me an iPhone photo showing a gaggle of geese grazing gentle under the three poles shown on an absolutely still day. No breeze. None. The accompanying text said: “They don’t work!” I texted back: “Take another pic tomorrow”. He did exactly that. The new photo had the pennants moving and geese nowhere in sight! So, yes a bit of a breeze, as is common almost all the time anywhere in the world, is a necessary component. And, we do know that water not only attracts birds, it also attracts breezes, thank goodness!
Roger