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WILD BIRDS

Unwelcomed wild birds can do a great deal of damage to your garden. Find out about the different ways that you can prevent this and how you can effectively scare them away.

Netting to protect against wild birds
Bird Netting

Most people like to attract wild birds to their garden but sometimes they can be a nuisance. Pigeon droppings can cause unsightly stains while woodpeckers can damage wooden homes. Some large wild birds will eat fish in garden ponds and crows, blackbirds or starlings can eat the fruit and vegetables that you have labored long and hard over. Canada geese will ravage grass and leave huge amounts of goose droppings.

Poisoning or trapping is not a very effective control strategy (and may be illegal) as more wild birds will visit your garden if it is attractive to them. One idea is to set up an area away from the vegetable garden with food and water to encourage the wild birds there instead of foraging in your garden patch. The goal should be to make the area undesirable for the wild birds and various methods can be used such as physical barriers, sound, visual, taste and odor deterrents.

Physical Barriers


Spikes are often useful to prevent wild birds roosting on ledges, roofs or sills. Sprays and Bird Repellent make surfaces slippery so that wild birds can’t hold on to roost. Netting also works well over bushes and fruit trees but may be impractical as it snags and can cause broken plants. An alternative is to build a frame or cage around the tree and cover that with netting right down to the ground. Chicken wire can be used to protect strawberries and seedlings if made into a box like enclosure. However these sorts of barriers can make harvesting rather difficult.

Sound

The element of surprise is the key factor in making a scare tactic useful. This kind of tactic is often used for wild birds like pigeons, woodpeckers, blackbirds and starlings. Use a device that can vary in frequency, duration and sequence.  If you live in the country an effective control against geese is Goose Stopper. This product is all natural, organic, and proven effective for preventing goose damage and droppings. It works by taste and smell, creating an area geese will avoid.

Balloon
Inexpensive bird control
Predator eyes scare birds

Visual

Again, change is important or the wild birds will soon realize that the object is not a threat as it does not move. A plastic snake on the ground may work if it is moved around regularly as may this Great Horned Owl with rotating head.

Anything shiny that moves will be useful such as tin cans or pie pans or balloons with large scary eyes. Try iridescent wild bird deterrent foil cut into strips and tied to fence posts or roofs as a scare tactic. It will catch the sun and wind will produce a metallic rattle to unnerve the wild birds.


Taste and Odor


Biodegradable sprays are available which targets the taste and smell of wild birds but won’t harm the environment. Chemical sprays are useful for geese as they hate the smell.

To protect your plants from wild birds you should use a variety of scare tactics and change the position of them regularly.

Find out about other Garden Pests.