llump41 wrote:

I have a couple of nice, large trees in our front yard. Of course the birds
love them an do their business all over the cars in the driveway. Anything
we can do to discourage the birds short of cutting the trees down?

I've found that some birds, like grackles, are more "scarable" (loud
noises, water cannon, etc.) than others. The most persistent ones were
house sparrows -- those little flying mice just wouldn't budge.

We got rid of roosting sparrows by having the trees, ash's whose
canopies had grown together a bit, thinned.

Get rid of ALL interlocking branches of your trees and thin them
DRAMATICALLY. The birds don't feel safe to roost if they see a lot of
air, rather than foliage and branches, under them. About 1/3 of the
canopy of each of our trees was removed.

I also got a "Prowler Owl" decoy (a windsock whose wings flap quite
realistically) from Northerntool.com. Every few days, I moved it to a
different location on the lawn (rigged up a pole in a patio umbrella
stand) or roof.