Bird Deterrent Accessory

definitely a necessary upgrade, cheap enough and easy to install.

If you have pesky perching birds in your area then this is a very handy add-on for the Tempest Weather Station. Highly recommended and easy to install.

Attached with out difficulty. And does what it says.

Everything about it seems high quality, the metal spikes, the rubber surround. It was easy to install and get all of the metal spikes in each of their holes in the rubber loop around the Tempest, just under the top rain haptic and without causing issues with the "wind tunnel".

However, the reason I gave it a 2 was because within 5 minutes of me installing this I noticed a bird trying to land. It was almost hovering because of the spikes and I thought, it actually works! One second later, the bird just hovers right down the middle where there are no spikes and sits there like the little....anyway. I went outside to scare it off hoping it just wouldn't try that again and possibly hurt itself. Nope, it was right back within 2 minutes but landed much faster this time as it had figured out that the middle was free and clear for him. So I should really give the review a 1 since its entire purpose didn't work but due to the quality of the materials, the metal spikes, the pretty cheap price, I gave it a 2.

I didn't give up, however, I improvised. I cut up some slight longer spikes out of coat hangers. Swapped out 3 of the metal spikes that came with the unit with these longer ones I cut up from a coat hanger. It was about the same thickness as the metal spikes so they fit perfectly into the holes in the rubber. So now there are 3 (kind of in 3 corners of the circle, like a trifecta) custom steel spikes that are longer and bend slightly inward toward the middle. Basically covers their middle landing area from the smaller metal spikes but not enough to affect rain or solar sensors. I did make sure not to bend them too much where the birds would just have a place to land on the new coat hanger pieces. Haven't seen a bird on it since so it worked out in the end. But it was, at least for me and the birds here, useless out of the box.

TBD. I purchased, but have not installed, this device as insurance in case birds take a liking to my weather station. There are two other perch points (post and light) nearby so maybe I'll get lucky and birds will continue to perch there instead. Tempest recommends only installing if really needed. The design looks good although I wonder about the lifetime of the elastic and the potential of the points to retain snow load. A thoughtful and affordable design compromise of many factors.