Problems with Birds

Hello all,

I'm hoping someone can help me out on here. I have a problem with little brown birds coming into my garden and damaging my primrose flowers. They rip bits off as well as the actual heads clean off and there's bits of flowers everywhere. It's in a small part of my garden out of the way next to my neighbours climbing hedge. I have a small cherry tree near by and I have hung old cd's off it to deter them as the primroses are just below.

I have other spring bulbs there too and the only thing they seem to damage is the primroses. Is there anything anyone can advise to deter them from that part of my garden. I don't mind them all coming in as I have bird feeders on the other part I just want them away from where my cherry tree. So far the cd's have not worked, any of ideas?

Thanks everyone and happy gardening.

 

I don't know if it will work, but you can get models of birds of prey which you could hang from the tree.

 

They'll be most likely sparrows, they can "attack" anything yellow in the spring, I've had problems with them in the past pulling off yellow crocus flowers, primroses, even stripping the flowers off a yellow witch hazel. Its hard to keep them off everything but cds (as you mention) or chicken wire bent into a dome shape and popped over the flowers might work (not very attractive admittedly)...

 

Hi all I know this is an old post of mine, but i'm still having problems with birds. Sparrows to be precise. They keep breaking plants, ripping off and stealing my twine that supports the plants and everytime I go into my garden it is completely covered in them.

I not sure why there are so many birds, I have never seen so many before and this is the first and only year i've had a problem with them. I have tried old cds, shiny foil, black pepper and even my cat just sits and watches them. Can anyone else give me some more tips how to keep them out. Thanks.

 

Try a scarecrow

 

Hi Ben01, I have issues with sparrows as well. They are probably House Sparrows and they have up to four clutches of youngsters a year, those clutches producing up to four chicks. So when they find a good food supply they tend to hang around and breed in the same area.

My neighbours feed them everyday and we've got about three dozen here, some of which I'm having a battle with as they are nesting underneath my roof tiles. They also make a lot of noise!

They are very destructive birds. I have an outside copper pipe that is lagged and bound with duck tape. In the last few weeks they have stripped the tape to get at the threads that run through it and have taken them for nesting. So, unfortunately I don't think there is anything you can do to save your plants. The only thing I can suggest trying, is to buy a cheap, bird of prey, look-alike and set that in your garden to see if it helps. I can't promise it will though.

 

Poor old little sparra.Getting it in the neck tonight 'ain't he.
For my 2 pennorth, I'd like to convince RSPB that a seagull cull in towns would be a good thing. Right now they are noisy, messy and spooking other birds in the neighbourhood and folks on the High Street soon. And, don't leave their poo on your shiny car bonnet. Take that Jonathan Livingstone seagull.

 

Sorry Jenny, but living with this amount of sparrows is like living with a houseful of budgies, they make such a noise. The seagulls around me are very well behaved. You win some, you lose some!

 

hello ben
sounds a bit spookey to me Luckily we have Maya , a grumpy spaniel who keeps all the birds away.

 

Hi Ben,

I had the same problem with pigeons and i used the skewer tip on the website below, seems to have worked for me.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8142437_keep-birds-eating-flowers.html

Rusty

 

Thanks all for your help, and thanks also Rusty for the link. I'm going to try skewers in the ground and i'm just off to the garden centre to see if I can find some sort of bird of prey decoy.

Just as I am writing this I found 2 more casualties in my garden a lovely aster which I planted this week and a delphinium. So this is war!