Seeding new lawn, bird scarers and other tips

Not a new build, but a garden which was previously overgrown for 20yrs. Tonnes of rubbish, tyres, bricks have gone, and 80 tonnes of top soil brought in. We plan to seed it.
-Should we have mixed manure with the top soil first?
-How flat does it need to be? We have rollers and a heavy leveling rake, but keep seeing shallow indents
-We've raked out any many stones as we can, but will marble sized ones be noticeable once grown?
- Does holographic paper or those hawk kites deter pigeons from eating the seed?
Any other tips are appreciated.

 

Grass is pretty forgiving, assuming you're not aiming for a bowling green, so manure would probably hinder germination more than helping.
The more level you get the ground now, the less bother when mowing, although dips can be gradually filled in with sieved soil once the grass is growing strongly.
IME, small stones aren't a problem as long as your mower isn't set to shave the grass, which it wouldn't / shouldn't be anyway for a new lawn
The kites do work, for a while. Best if it's moved around from time to time, though, as pigeons soon get used to deterrents.

 

There's a saying about seed sowing, but I can't remember exactly how it goes. It's along the lines of one handful for the grass, one for the birds and one for summat else.
We have a lot of pigeons here but I never had any problem with them eating it when I've done grass.
I agree with what @noisette47 has said re stones, and also about the levels. You'll always get a few dips and bumps which can be sorted later. You can use one of those boards you drag across the surface for levelling, but that isn't easy unless you can attach it to one of the ride on mowers or similar.
Making sure the soil's firmed then lightly raked before sowing is key, as well as ensuring the seed has good contact, but you can always resow any bits that fail or get missed. Doing the sowing in one direction, then repeating in the other, also helps, especially in a larger area.

Normally, you'd do a light feed with something like BF&Bone, a few weeks before sowing. I wouldn't use manure.

 

Thank you both for some great tips.

 

3 seeds = 1 for the birds, 1 for the wind, 1 to grow.

Small stones are no problem. You'd need the patience of a Zen monk to remove them all.

 

Mix your grass seed with damp compost /sharp sand, place to one side for three-five days, until you can see emerging shoots. Sow evenly across your prepared area and lightly cover to keep moist.
This is to allow the grass seed to swell and start the transformation from starch to sugar, just like malting barley. Birds should be detered by the unfamiliar flavour allowing your grass to germinate.

 

I have just removed a fairly large flowerbed to make life a little easier for myself. I have bought some grass seed to sow where the bed was. My lawn ( hmm pushing it to call it that) is a good proportion of weeds and moss so not needing a bowling green type result just greenish will do me! I have sown grass seed before in a large area ( about 1/4 acre) and did not rake it in….no chance at that size, however, I could where the flowerbed was as nothing like 1/4 acre. Should I bother or just walk over the seed to get good contact? I only weigh about 9 stone. Currently by some miracle the area is very dry but due rain at the weekend which should do the necessary to get the seed germinating quite quickly.

 

One for the rook and one for the crow, one will wither and the other will grow. Ive always found a very thin layer of fine compost will keep most of your seed in place.

 

Yes - all those rhymes sound familiar. I just couldn't remember any of them
I would just walk over it @hailbopp and then do the usual very light raking. The only problem at this time of year is the settling of the ground going through autumn/winter, so you might need to add more layers of soil/compost in spring and a bit more seed.
It's not usually ideal at this time of year for seeding where I am, but you might be lucky. I'd have been ok this year probabl,y as we've had the east side's weather so far this month, but October is normally too wet and cold for seeding to work, so it's always a gamble.

 

The version I remember is s One for the Rook one for the Crow one to rot and one to grow, but much the same sentiment as yours.
If it's only a small area you can get "dressed " seed it has a coating which is supposed to deter birds., but more expensive. I like the idea of pre-germinating the seed though. I am a lightweight too but I would put a plank of wood down and walk on that .

 

That's the one @Allotment Boy. I knew the 'rot' bit was relevant for me!