Providing things (baths, feeders, houses, etc.) for birds without having to monitor/clean them often is tough. I'd concentrate on where your water intake is and see if you can place a filter of sorts at this point - one that is easy to change out or clean regularly. We gave up using bird feeders and now toss our seed into a blue spruce - we couldn't clean the feeders enough to make them safe for the birds. You might even have to go to a different sort of bath/fountain that is designed more appropriately for just the sort of situation you are encountering (which, unfortunately, one doesn't learn about until after the fact).

Yes, I HATE them! They can decimate my trees in a day!!! I go on egg patrol all the time! Luckily the eggs are so big, I can find them quite easily. They love citrus and also sansho (Mountain ash, sichuan pepper)! Ashita

Thanks, bluebars, for your reply. I will try the other forums you mentioned. They are sparrows, roosting at night mainly. There are not nesting. I considered the owl idea, but suspected it wouldn't work . Birds are smart! Thanks for confirming my skepticism. My husband did end up pulling the vine down, but lovely man that he is, he didn't cut it, or dig it out, rather he re-directed it further upwards, to grow vertically, higher up the house, rather than letting it nestle itself along the garage roof line. So at least the vine is still growing, and if I ever figure out a solution to this dilemma, I can train it back to where I wanted it (It looked SO good there!). Thanks again for your help!

kahbear - in case those inflatibles stop working, a hotel I went to every summer had a pool very close to the ocean...within 100 yards or less. They actually had thin guy wires that stretched from the third level from different positions across the pool to a pole that was fixed to the pool house on the other side of the pool. They had a lot of fly-bys from the seagulls, but I never saw any mess around the many years I went there, and believe me, seagulls can make a huge mess very quickly.