7 Ways to Keep Birds Out of the Garden

keep birds out of your gardenBirds can be a welcome addition to your garden, but sometime we want to keep birds out of the garden.   Many kinds birds are great they eat garden pests such as snails and insects. Unless of course they are eating your fruit or plucking your fish out of your pond!  Then something needs to be done.

The question is how do you keep those birds out of the garden.  Well I have listed some tips below that you might find useful.

Plants

This plant section is a little different than most and lets you know how to keep birds our of the garden.  There really are not any kinds of plants that actually repel birds that I know of, but some plants are more attractive to some birds.  This does not mean that these are the only plants these birds will go after but instead they will  be more attracted to them.

  • Crows love corn peas, corn, and any seeds
  • Pidgins like berries,  cabbages, and peas
  • Finches and Sparrows love fruit tree buds.  This obviously can destroy the fruits before they even start.

If you are having troubles with pidgins or crows eating your corn.  Then you can always soak some dried corn in whiskey or some other high alcohol liquor then spread it around your garden.  The birds will eat the corn become drunk and not return.

Scent Repellents can Keep Birds out of the Garden

There are some commercially available scent repellents.  I personally don’t like the scent repellents for getting rid of birds for a couple of reasons.  One birds can smell and their sense of smell is great but they are very sensitive to toxins.  So if the repellent has any type of toxin in it, then it can actually harm the birds.

Scent repellents, in most cases, have to be reapplied often depending amount of rain in your area.  This could be as often as every few days.  This just seems like a lot of extra work.birds in your garden

Fencing and Nets

Fencing and goes a long way to keep birds out of the garden.  For example you can net your trees to keep those pesky finches and sparrows out of your fruit trees, especially in the spring.

Taking and fencing your garden will also keep many other animals out of your garden including deer, skunks, and rabbits.  Then put bird netting over your fence to keep those birds out.  The combo then hits many things at one time.

Motion Sensor Lights

Sorry to break the news to you here.  The lights really dont work because most of the pesky birds you dont want around are not nocturnal.  So having a light come on really wont do that much.  The do work well on raccoons and other nocturnal animals.motion sensor lights

Ultrasonic Motion Sensors

These can work well against birds.  The key here is to make sure that the motion sensor has many different patterns and frequencies.  If they are the same over and over again the animals become used to the sound and they learn that it is not a danger.  They will then ignore it.

Motion Sensor Sprinklers

These can work really well against those water birds such as storks and herons.  Set it so that it is triggered when the bird lands close to the pond.  The sound, quick motion, and splash of water tends to scare away the birds.

It actually also works with other birds that are in your garden as well.  But you need to make sure they can trigger the sprinkler.  So you might have to adjust your settings. keep dogs out of garden

Other Animals

Cats and dogs are awesome to keep birds out of the garden.  But then again they must be trained not to trample the plants or use the garden as a restroom.  Some other things that can work are ceramic or plastic animal replicas.  You will need to occasionally ( every other day) move them so the birds don’t realize they are not real.

Conclusions

Birds can be a little bit more difficult than other animals to get out of your garden.  One reason is they come in many different sizes.  They can hide behind things, in the case of motion sprinklers.

No I did not forget about he old fashioned scare crow.  You can build one and place it your garden but you have to move it every couple of days and even then it can become in effective.

I personally like the birds in my garden they tend to get rid of the bad bugs without using any pesticides.  That being said, there are times when you want to keep them out.  I like the use of a combination of netting and fencing in that case.  Although I also like the use of motions activated sprinklers if the birds are invading my ponds.

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