The birds! The Birds! They are as hungry as humans, but they have at least one advantage over humans: they can fly.
We have some fruit trees and when fruit is ripe, they don’t hesitate to attack.
So what to do? We could succumb to their eatings, or we could respond.
So some choices are:
1. Net
2. Spray
3. Do something else
Netting seems impractical. It would interfere with our own capabilities to harvest the fruit, or rid the tree of damaged or diseased fruit.
Not sure if spraying chemicals would deter birds, but regardless we don’t want to use chemicals.
So an internet search turned up some creative ideas. So we tried CDs.
CDs are on the decline in human usage, but we had access to a pile of them. I used string to hang about ten CDs from some outer branches of the tree.
The swaying of the CDs in the breeze causes the CDs to never be still, and the reflection of the sun on the CDs seems constantly moving. The effect in the back yard is similar to a small disco ball reflecting light in many random directions all at once.
And we are happy to report that birds seems to avoid the tree nowadays. Perhaps the constant movement of the reflections signals something of danger to avoid. No matter the reason, we are happy to have less damaged fruit.
Now we need to think about the squirrels.
How have you dealt with birds eating from your fruit trees? Send me your comments, use the Contact page.
Photos by the author.
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