Bird Scarers...My battle against the birds
>> Saturday, February 06, 2010
Every year I try to defend my fruits and tomatoes against the birds. Some years I have lost a whole crop to those darn pest. Most times I tie a plastic bag or one of those garlic net or newspaper over the fruits. But it is a lot of work doing that.
I have a few cd disk which I hang on the trees but do not have enough of it to be effective.
This year I came up with a few ideas on making more bird scarers. We had these cut aluminium cans lying around for years. Mr Redneck was going to use those for making 'something' but it went into the too-hard-basket. At first I was stabbing it to make holes but it took too long. Mr Redneck suggested I use a puncher. That worked ! A few holes were punched and some video tapes were tied on to it to make it more 'flappy' and 'wriggly'.
Then I found some old floppy disk. Did the same...punched some holes and tied strips of vhs tapes to it.
I do think it is working. The peaches have hardly been pecked at since I placed the bird scarers on the branches. But it is still too early to tell. Will have to wait until the fruits are near to being riped. Then the birds will not be able to resist the aroma from the riped fruits.
I have a few cd disk which I hang on the trees but do not have enough of it to be effective.
This year I came up with a few ideas on making more bird scarers. We had these cut aluminium cans lying around for years. Mr Redneck was going to use those for making 'something' but it went into the too-hard-basket. At first I was stabbing it to make holes but it took too long. Mr Redneck suggested I use a puncher. That worked ! A few holes were punched and some video tapes were tied on to it to make it more 'flappy' and 'wriggly'.
Then I found some old floppy disk. Did the same...punched some holes and tied strips of vhs tapes to it.
I do think it is working. The peaches have hardly been pecked at since I placed the bird scarers on the branches. But it is still too early to tell. Will have to wait until the fruits are near to being riped. Then the birds will not be able to resist the aroma from the riped fruits.
Lager cans flapping over the tomatoes
Floppy disk guarding the peaches
CD disk on the apple tree
Aluminium strip guarding the peaches
Floppy disk over the grapes
Floppy disk guarding the peachesCD disk on the apple treeAluminium strip guarding the peachesFloppy disk over the grapes 
2 comments:
My Mom has bird probs too, I hope you'll keep us undated on how your danglers are working. She went to the point of draping netting around two of her trees to keep the birds out... it didn't work too well :-<
frances
Long beach, Ca
Hi Frances,
I was waiting to make sure the bird scarers really worked before replying.
YES, it most definitely worked. But you need to hang a lot of them all over the tree. The apples have all ripened and were picked and stored away a few days ago.
I have to say though that the little birds seems to know when the apples were at their peak and you will then notice a few apples being pecked at. They left them alone all this while. I don't mind sharing a few apples with them, just not all of them.
As all my apples are harvested, I have moved the bird scarer to my feijoa tree - thats the next fruit ready to harvest in the next few weeks.
My project for the winter months will be to make heaps more of these 'scarers' for next season.
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