Bird Deterrents for Gardens

If you have birds in your garden, that’s a problem. Birds eat your fruits and plants and leave their droppings all over the garden. Thankfully, there are many things you can do to solve your bird problem. This article will elaborate a few of the methodologies employed to reduce or eliminate your bird dilemma.

The first consideration when deciding which methods to use to deter birds from your garden is bird pressure. That is to say, just how many birds are getting into your garden? If the problem is light, a solution like a scarecrow could be enough to work. If the problem is heavier and birds have nested nearby, different measure will need to be taken.

The first bird control scenario for a garden is light bird pressure. This means there are only a few birds around occasionally. In this scenario you will be okay with a motion-based scarecrow or a stationary scarecrow that you move around every so often. If there are only a couple of birds hanging around occasionally, scarecrows can work to solve it.

If birds are eating plants, chemical deterrents are an option to prevent this. Methyl anthranilate is usually the best choice in this situation. It is the grape-flavoring found in Kool Aid and other candies and birds do not like the taste. Applied to plants, birds will learn to stop eating them. Unlike other chemical repellents methyl anthranilate does not harm birds or humans.

The next level of bird problem is medium bird pressure. This means there are birds hanging around consistently. Usually this is because there are food sources around. If birds stay around an area for long enough, they will usually wind up nesting there or nearby. If you have a medium bird pressure problem, but birds haven’t nested yet, it’s important to fix the problem before they do.

At medium bird pressure you have a few options for bird control for gardens. The first option is removing bird food sources. These include bird feeders, food strewn on the ground, and trash. Remove bird feeders, pick up food on the ground, don’t feed the birds, and cover up trash containers. Birds will always want to come back to the area if there is food around.

If the food birds are eating is from the garden, there are a couple of options for that as well. The first option is methyl anthranilate, as in a light bird pressure problem. As in that scenario methyl anthranilate will make your plants taste and smell bad to the birds and they will stop eating from them.

The next option is bird netting. Bird netting can be placed over plants or an entire garden to stop birds and insects from getting at your plants. Installed correctly, bird netting will block out birds with 100% effectiveness while still letting rain and sunlight hit the plants.

The next scenario is heavy bird pressure. This means that birds have nested nearby and are always in the area. In this case you will likely need to call a bird control company to get rid of the problem.

The first way to stop a heavy bird pressure problem is to remove bird food sources. These include bird feeders, food strewn on the ground, people feeding the birds, and trash. Your garden itself could also be a food source. In this case you should also block off the garden with bird netting.

The next trick for addressing a bird pressure problem when birds have nested is blocking off bird nesting grounds. In order to stop the birds from reproducing and multiplying, you need to find out where they make their nests and block off these locations. This is typically done with bird netting. Bird netting can be applied to cracks in the walls, the tops of chimneys, behind trash compactors, and anywhere else birds are nesting.

The trickiest part of doing this is that the birds have already nested. In the case of migratory birds it is always illegal to move a live migratory bird nest yourself. What you can do in this situation is wait for the birds to migrate for the season, then find their nesting grounds and block them off before they can nest the next season. Birds often return to the same nesting grounds year after year.

This still carries risk, as bird nests are hosts to disease and parasites. If you are going to do this we recommend wearing equipment to block possible disease and cleaning and disinfecting the nesting area thoroughly after moving nests. When it comes down to it, in almost all scenarios you are better off hiring a bird control company to address a heavy bird pressure problem.

There are three species whose nests it is not illegal to move, and those are house sparrows, common pigeons, and starlings. These birds are also not migratory, meaning they will stay in the same area for the winter.

If you are facing a non-migratory bird problem, we highly recommend calling in a bird control company to address the issue. These birds are often aggressive in defending their nests and the nests are host to parasites and disease. They also will not leave the area after the nesting season, so it is otherwise difficult to block off the nesting areas with bird netting.

Luckily, if you have a heavy pressure bird problem, removing bird food sources and blocking off bird nesting grounds will solve your bird infestation from the roots and your garden will be free from pest birds.

If you’re looking for bird control help with your bird problem, consider hiring a bird control company. They can provide you with expert guidance on how to best approach your specific situation. AviAway is a bird control company that offers free bird control consultations. Click here or call 844-247-3373 to set up a free consultation. They can walk you through how to solve your bird problem free of charge, and if you choose to move onto the next step, will install bird exclusion methods on your property for you.