.... Because we live in the 'standard' suburban garden, with youngsters
next door who play football, for some years I have used the arrangement
that you can see in the photographs on my home page ....

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/booty.weather/

These are actually the inner tubes from 'WetFax' rolls for those that
remember them, but anything similarly robust (to weather) will suffice.
They are there of course to deflect a football (won't stop them totally,
but might / have avoided damaging the gauges and grass minimum
thermometer), but they also serve to either discourage birds altogether
from perching on the gauge (and incidentally ground-feeding birds &
larger mammals are discouraged from blundering into the grass min.
overnight etc.), or alternatively the small to medium sized birds perch
on the top of the tubes, ignoring the gauge. (Larger birds can't perch
on them, and because they are 'proud' of the gauge, they feel inhibited
from alighting on the gauge itself.)

It's worked for the past 7 years & I am pretty sure that the diameter of
the tubes is too small to affect the rain 'catch'. Might fit the bill in
your case?

Martin.


--
FAQ & Glossary for uk.sci.weather at:-
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/booty.weather/uswfaqfr.htm
and
http://booty.org.uk/booty.weather/metindex.htm


"Chris" wrote in message
...
In message , Les
Crossan writes
I did think to construct something akin to the 'spikes' used in
cities to deter pigeons perching, but wondered if anyone could
suggest a quicker fix.

A cat??? House sparrows have become quite rare so perhaps a non -
lethal deterrent might be a better idea. What about a stick - on hawk
on the house window??

Cat - not on. Too many birds around the feeders (which are located
well away from the gauge). I even have a 'tame' female sparrowhawk
who drops by twice a day (pretty regularly too, 9am and 3.30pm), but
they are all back within 30 seconds of her moving on.

--
Chris