It’s the reign of Terror Eyes. And...

It’s the reign of Terror Eyes. And the birds, if they could talk, might say, “Off with that head.”

Resembling a yellow beach ball with big, moving owl eyes and a painted-on beak, the balloon device with the sinister name bobs and turns on a wire above the large central plaza at the sprawling Hughes Electro-Optical and Data Systems Group plant in El Segundo.

And in its quiet, understated way, it has accomplished what human shouting and arm flailing failed to do: shoo away pigeons and sea gulls.

“You used to hear the birds singing. Now, you’re lucky to hear a cheep,” said Tim Cozine, who works in facilities maintenance at the plant. He said the birds are intimidated by the constant movement and “they just fly away.”

The plaza is next to the cafeteria and attracts employees who want to enjoy coffee breaks or lunch outdoors. After years of dodging pigeons, sea gulls and their cousins, the people at Hughes in 1988 launched the battle of the birds.

“They were dive-bombing the employees,” said Cozine. Aside from harassing human targets, the birds were leaving corrosive droppings on buildings.

Initially, stationary plastic owls were put along the tops of buildings facing the plaza. They were augmented by spikes and a sticky repellent.

The owls, which the birds took to be predators, worked until the birds figured out that the owls never moved. “They began perching on them,” Cozine said.

Terror Eyes has been guarding the plaza for 11 months, and Cozine doesn’t expect birds to start landing on them any time soon. He said they work because they’re never still and their “3-D holographic eyes seem to follow you.”

And from a bottom-line corporate perspective, they’re terrific. The Japanese-made balloons cost about $50 and only need to be pumped up every six months.

Jackie Barra, a circuit board assembler, is happy that the birds are gone. “They used to be a nuisance, and some of that nuisance came very close to my head,” she said.