Dalen Large Rotating Head Fake Owl Decoy to Scare Birds Away - 18” Tall - Garden Scarecrow Owl with 360º Rotating Head

For the price, this is an excellent 'watch owl'. It is made of sturdy materials and the bottom plug pops out easily allowing the hollow inside to be filled with rocks or sand (I added about 2/4 lbs river rocks). This holds the owl in place during winds or inclement weather conditions. The paint and detail are really good. This is my second decoy owl (different brands) and I prefer this one from the more expensive version I purchased at a chain hardware and garden store. The head 'rotates', but not automatically. There are no gears or batteries or solar panels on this bird. His head 'snaps' onto a pivot bolt attached to the body. Kind of like a bobblehead, the head will move slightly up and down and turns 360 degrees as the breeze blows. The eyes are piercing and effective. While I love welcoming the great variety of birds that I come to my property, I purchased this due to an aggressive and territorial cardinal that would attack and poop on my car daily. I cover my mirrors every day so he started to attack his reflection in the windows. He's scratched my paint and windows, and I'd just had it with him. I tried other decoy methods found online (reflective mylar, scarecrow), nothing worked....until this item. He's been watching over for only a few days and already the cardinal has been absent since the moment "Owly" arrived. I move him every day to simulate a real owl, and so that the offensive bird doesn't get comfortable. I highly recommend this decoy, especially for the price.

I am very pleased so far with the Gardeneer Owl decoy. I have a small back yard with a covered patio with an outdoor table and chairs. Birds have been visiting my yard and landing on my chairs and table. They of course left their calling cards which created a disgusting mess that I was having to clean daily. I had no desire of hurting the birds, I just wanted for them to stop making the mess. The Owl looks menacing and has a bobble head with eyes that look back at you. The head is weighted to balance it onto the body which alows it to bobble and spin when affected by the wind. This seems to make the devoy quite realistic to birds. It is pretty light and wasn't sure if it would hold up to wind. There is a plug in the bottom to fill it with sand or something. I chose to use gravel used for concrete agrigate. I rinsed it clean and dried it. It went in easily and was heavy enough to stabilize it. The results is that birds now land on my perimeter privacy fence and that's as far as they dare. I have not had any bird droppings since I placed my new pet on the table. It works! As far as I can tell, its been 100% effective. The instructions say to move it around so birds will not get used to it in one spot. I plan to make a portable perch/stand to move my new watch owl every few days.

We bought this for crows that have been overtaking our property and stealing our chicken eggs. The first few weeks it worked beautifully, the crows wouldn't even fly over our property and even my horses were on alert and believed this to be a real owl. After a couple weeks the crows seemed to be testing it and started flying over the yard again. We started moving the owl around the property, but it was too late and we are overrun by crows again. It looks very realistic and the head movement is pretty real, it moves easily in the breeze. Don't be fooled though this is not solar powered by the sun. It does not have any electronic movement.

I’ve purchased these before without issue and recently decided to purchase another. Yet either Amazon or Dalen has now twice sent me the cheaper non-rotating version (and after having pointed out the mistake the first time around).

The first one came with the head off and head was separated in half. I thought this is how it shipped. You tube video showed how to snap head in place. I snapped everything together but the seam between front and back of head has a defective space. Only after I received the second one, which was delivered fully intact, did I realize the extent of the damage of the first one. It is sadly too late for an exchange. Filled it with a 10 pound bag of gravel to weigh it down. The second one works perfectly. So far keeping the birds away. First one, head is not balanced like the second one, does not move as much and tilts too forward. Not effective enough.

This owl worked great! I had a major bird problem in my yard due to the berry tree in my drive way, and let’s just say the mess they were making on a daily bases made it look like they had a personal vendetta against our cars. When I bought the owl I was hesitant based on the bad reviews I read but I pressed on and hoped that it would help deter at least some of the birds from my yard/driveway. Much to my surprise it worked almost instantly and better then expected, I have NO birds! Which means no berry mess or bird poop on my driveway or cars. I do suggest filling the owl with fish tank gravel or rocks because it is top heavy and will fall over. But when I filled it with left over fish tank gravel I had it did great, and it stayed upright through a pretty bad storm we had not to long ago. If your hesitant about this product don’t be it works. It’s a great none lethal alternative for a bird problem. One other tip I will give is that you should move the owl periodically to keep the other birds on their toes, lol. Because I did notice when I left it in one spot for too long I would see one or two brave birds try to reappear. But once I moved the bird to a new location they were gone.

I was having horrible bird killings in the backyard and it was ruining the fun of feeding the birds, since the goal was helping them, not luring them to their death. Out of desperation I tried this owl and was quite surprised at how well it's been working these last three months. I religiously move the owl every other day to one of 3 to 4 key locations and will be able to change up the location even more when the weather gets nice and the yard isn't as soggy. I just make sure relatively close to the bird feeder. I had one hawk and occasionally two and have seen neither since the owl arrived. At first all the squirrels were gone too, but they've start coming back, but they are markedly decreased. I used to have up to six at a time, now never more than two. Two small complaints, the the head needs to lock on a bit more securely, the owl has only fallen once but the head went rolling and you really can't feel it going back into place. Also the wind really needs to be pretty fierce to make the head actually turn if there are other houses or buildings close by. Mine usually catches the wind in one direction and basically stays pointed that direction until the owl gets moved again. Overall I would still recommend this though if you have a hawk problem. Just be committed to moving the owl every other day or he probably won't fool the hawks for long.

I ordered two owls and one arrived with the head separated into two pieces and laying in the bottom of the box, the body was wrapped in the original packaging with no head. several other parts were also missing so they head cannot be attached to the neck/head of the bird. this was obviously not something that happened during shipping as the missing parts were nowhere to be found. meaning it was in this condition when shipped

Esto y nada es lo mismo, los pajaros saben perfecto que es de mentiras y lo ignoran al robarse mis blueberrys

Overall the owl is very life like in apperance. The rotating head works best in slight breeze. High winds just push it down into body. I mounted my owl on 3/16 pole and looks great. So far it has kept the hawks and ravens at bay but doves and pigeons just ignore it. One trick I discovered with the owl head is to attach small magnet on bottom of head to make it spin better in higher winds. The weight of the magnet is key to keeping the owl looking straight ahead. There is a small metal clamp on the bottom of the owl head to place your magnet.

Although it had some effect in preventing pigeons, they come on top of it and sit on AC to drop their excreta. So I wouldn’t say you will get 100% effect.

I must say that my wife and I didn't believe this would work and be effective, but from many small birds crapping all over my machinery in an open shed to now having "nothing" is amazing. The idea of the head moving on this is an excellent idea. I moved the Owl around a couple times in the first few weeks. We don't even have the birds crapping under our house veranda anymore which is probably 50mt away from where we have the Owl. I normally never write reviews but this Owl is amazing which I sure recommend to anyone.

Very nicely detailed owl model that is sturdy and will stay watch over your items... It will also watch as the other animals come and go as city birds are apparently not afraid of this thing... neither are the squirrels, bunnies, or raccoons. YMMV if you're hoping this will keep away those things but otherwise a nice item. Can't really fault it for the bravery of the animals.