Small Birds Causing False Rain

There have been a few reports exactly as you described.

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I have been planning to remount my PTZ camera anyway, one sure way to tell if it is avian invaders I guess- as my beehives are also only about 20m from the SKY we may even get a swarm landing there as it is that time of year as well. Pics to follow hopefully :slight_smile:

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They do it all the time with mine. I actually seen small song birds trigger rain and I have several juvenile Doves that like to land on it.

Hereā€™s a shot of the last one which I got a rain notification but no registered rain (at least not yet-Iā€™ve had several of these and I believe itā€™s the false rain correction WF has been working on). The rain showing is from a bird at 7:00 am (that one only shows a spec of the bird in a few frames, must of perched on the side not in view of cam).

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Iā€™ve tried putting reflective stuff around the area but it hasnā€™t helped(didnā€™t think it would since the birds donā€™t care about all the solar panels covering my roof). Iā€™m going to put a plastic owl up the next(probably today) and if that doesnā€™t work itā€™s bird spikes.

Iā€™ve had enough false rain that my rain machine skipped watering the last 3 days, but most of that was from when I shortened my mast and mounted my cam on it (Sky was sitting on top of chimney while doing this and where it picked up most of the rain as it vibrated in the wind). I actually managed to take the mast, remove the Sky and remount it w/o getting a rain notification.

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I put up a plastic owl this afternoon. Didnā€™t seem to help with this Dove, he did fly in from the west from bellow so he may not of even seen it (itā€™s right behind him-hard to see in current lighting). I thought about putting it where heā€™s perched but felt it might get blow over easier. At least he didnā€™t perch on the Sky this time. The last thing Iā€™m going to try before bird spikes is reflective ribbon attached to the mast just bellow the Sky.

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I noticed today that a broody Magpie choosing the SKY as its roost - and eclipse the sensors at about 12:24 hours (when it saw me leave to go wherever) -That our SKY decided not to give a false rain registration, however the Weather Display software registered the eventā€¦ Nice- -Absolutely no negative reflection on Weather Display software, Beautiful data !-oops, just realised I posted this in the wrong section, edited for typo

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Hi David, @dsj

Quite often I can confirm that false rain was a bird because it shades the light sensor. I am guessing you must have considered using the combined dimming and vibration when a bird lands to automatically disregard the false rain. It is as if we have an eye watching for birds :slight_smile: Here is todays example:


cheers Ian

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Great idea, Ian. That just might work when used with other methods.

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Yes! This is one of the ideas we tested a while back. It turns out that itā€™s pretty tricky to do in real-time, and a rain cloud can often cause a similar drop in brightness. But itā€™s definitely something we want to come back toā€¦

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Iā€™ve used corrosive proof wire strands of lengths of 4-5" around the perimeter using Gorilla black tape.
This worked quite well for a Rainwise tipping rain gauge. One must be careful not to get any of the tape on the sensing surface of course.

Gary L

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Looking for some insight on how to affix a narrow band of outdoor tape with rust-proof wire ā€˜spindlesā€™ to prevent birds from perching on Skyā€™s sensor.

I am not familiar with the location of the various sensors under the ā€˜canopyā€™ of Sky. Iā€™m wondering if it is safe to apply a narrow band of gorilla tape on the side of Sky to hold thin wires to prevent bird landings? Iā€™m not sure if this would negatively impact some of Skyā€™s sensing features.

Gary L

you can easily tape around like you can see above in this thread, the sensor is under the top dome and not on the sides.

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isnā€™t that a bit useless solution in the dark?
How are the birds behaving anyways? My guess is a single landing and then they just sit mostly quietly until they leave. Wouldnā€™t that be easy to suppress as rain is most of the time more then a few drops in a very short period of time.

Since this site seems to cover anything and all possibilities of precision and accuracy - let me remind us all of the ā€œshrikeā€ as one considers a strong skewer like device. Now all possibilities are covered.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPXDouwQFFs

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zip ties, particularly the smaller ones get fragile quickly in cold and damp weather. They then crack and fall. If one is installing their Sky where it is difficult to access, i.e. rooftop, an outdoor adhesive such as gorilla tape may last longer with good results.

Gary L

I have left my Sky original because I suspect anything around it especially beside the haptic sensor will in my opinion change the rain readings. I believe this because in my experiments I have held the sky on a pole inside the house and lightly tapped the side of the pole with a plastic ball point pen which reads as heavy rain. I suspect that when the wind is strong and the rain is hitting the side of the haptic sensor the vibrations will be picked up. And also anything interfering with the shape of the drops of rain falling onto the haptic sensor will also change what the sensor picks up. And due to strong winds causing false rain I suspect anything like bird spikes might increase the vibration problem. Has anyone with more than one sky compared with and without bird spikes on rain amounts?
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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I have reflective tape around one of mine, and it does not seem to be causing any huge errorsā€¦

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Now all you need to do is paint it with a broadband laser. That will keep the birds away.

ā€¦and throw in some disco music to keep the neighbors awayā€¦ :rofl:

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In Asia, Diso just brings out the loud drunk singers.

Hi @vreihen

How much difference has it made to birds landing on it?
cheers Ian :slight_smile:

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