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My tomatoes and sunflowers have suffered damage at the 'hands' of birds. I made a 'scare-crow' but that did not help very much. Some friends have talked of 'anti-bird nets' but are unable to give detailed guidance. I mean does one have to create a totally closed enclosure with such nets on the top as well as on the sides? Or is it enough to have a net directly over the fruit/flower bearing plants? Some people are warning me of a serious situation in this regard with Papayas. I am hoping to benefit from the experience and wisdom of someone who has gone through this problem.
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Satish,
This is what I used to do before my Greenhouse days.
Tie lots of empty polythene covers in a string and tie it around the plant such that these bags move when there is wind. They make noise and birds don't come at all. I have saved several tomatoes this way.
I read this in the web somewhere to keep birds at bay:
you might want to try this
1. Take a transparent polythene bag strong enough to hold water.
2. Fill half with water and tie its mouth with twine.
3. Hang such packet of water around your garden and also places where birds damage a lot.
4. It seems birds hate the reflection/glare and stay away, also hang few tapes of used tape-recorder cassette
Do try this and let me know. If this works, we will make it our official remedy 😉
GG
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geekgardener said:
Satish,
This is what I used to do before my Greenhouse days.
Tie lots of empty polythene covers in a string and tie it around the plant such that these bags move when there is wind. They make noise and birds don't come at all. I have saved several tomatoes this way.
I read this in the web somewhere to keep birds at bay:
you might want to try this
1. Take a transparent polythene bag strong enough to hold water.
2. Fill half with water and tie its mouth with twine.
3. Hang such packet of water around your garden and also places where birds damage a lot.
4. It seems birds hate the reflection/glare and stay away, also hang few tapes of used tape-recorder cassette
Do try this and let me know. If this works, we will make it our official remedy 😉
GG
Hi GG:
Thanks a million for the great suggestions! I will surely try them out and in fact even add metalised polyester tapes if the birds hate glare and reflection. The ideas are really super and I am quite sure they will work. I will keep reporting back on my experiences regarding these experiments. Thanks again.
Satish
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Hi GG:
Sorry it took me so long to get back on the subject but I really wanted to be sure of my results. I tried the options suggested by you—and some more and wish to submit my conclusions hereunder for your further consideration and validation:
1. First I tied empty polythene bags in series on a twine and then hung these around the plants. This was quite effective only when there was a sufficiently strong wind. A major disadvantage with this method was that the bags got moist at night which allowed a lot of dust to collect on them during the day (but you might not have this problem in Bangalore!). After a few days the bags looked rather unseemly.
2. Next I filled up plastic bags with water and hung them around the garden. Quite effective but these also started looking 'unseemly' after a few days. Additionally, some birds even attacked the bags with their beaks!
3. While trying out the above-said options I had a feeling that the birds are scared of reflective objects and anything that moves. To achieve this I cut about 1.5" x 2' strips from a very thin metallic gift wrapper with a hollographic design and fastened these at one end with self adhesive tape at various places in the garden including some on the plants. Besides being very reflective these strips move around all the time! They always look nice and bright too. Above all, they were very effective in scaring the birds! I have not lost a single tomato to the birds after installing these.
It would be very nice if some more of us could try out this suggestion to validate the veracity of my results.
Regards
Satish
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Satish,
Excellent study. I am very happy to see the results of your experiment. Your idea of using a metallic gift wrapper is great. What is more interesting is that it worked like a charm. Birds definitely don't like glare/reflection on their eye. I read somewhere that is one of the ways to catch a bird. When a light source is pointed in their eye they get temporary blindness. Not sure if its true.
Thanks for taking the time to experiment and post the results.
GG
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geekgardener said:
Satish,
Excellent study. I am very happy to see the results of your experiment. Your idea of using a metallic gift wrapper is great. What is more interesting is that it worked like a charm. Birds definitely don't like glare/reflection on their eye. I read somewhere that is one of the ways to catch a bird. When a light source is pointed in their eye they get temporary blindness. Not sure if its true.
Thanks for taking the time to experiment and post the results.
GG
Hi GG:
It happened because of the inspiration provided by you. Even the idea regarding birds not liking glare came from you. Thanks anyway.
Satish
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Hi GG:
This is specially for you! I had an eerie experience at the Krishi Vigyan Mela at the IARI. Believe it or not, metalised polyester rolls of about 1.5" width were being sold commercially at the Mela! You have one chance to guess the purpose!! Your guess is right, it is used by farmers to scare away birds!!! A modern scare-crow I was told. So, after all I only reinvented the wheel at best. That is if I am not accused of plagiarism, hopefully. Regards.
Satish
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