Birds: identify, prevent, control

Heaviest as fruit and berries ripen through late spring and summer, October to February.

Birds strip ripening fruit, peck seedlings and pull out newly sown seed across most Australian gardens. They are a welcome part of the garden ecosystem, so we focus on excluding them from crops rather than deterring them entirely.

How to identify it

• Pecked, half-eaten fruit and berries left on the plant
• Seedlings snapped off or pulled out at ground level
• Disturbed soil and missing seed along sown rows
• Droppings on leaves and fruit near feeding spots

How to prevent it

• Drape fine bird netting over a frame so it does not touch the foliage or trap birds
• Use full crop cages or tunnel cloches over berries and seedling beds
• Cover newly sown rows with mesh or cloches until plants establish
• Time nets to go on as fruit starts to colour, before birds find it

Organic control, step by step

• Use proper bird netting with a mesh under 5mm so birds and wildlife cannot get tangled
• Hang reflective tape, old CDs or scare-eye balloons, moving them every few days so birds do not adjust
• Try a fake hawk or owl decoy, repositioning it regularly
• Pick fruit slightly early and ripen it indoors when pressure is high
• Combine several deterrents at once, since birds quickly learn to ignore a single trick

Plants it attacks