How to protect a strawberry garden from birds. How to protect strawberries from birds? What is the most reliable way

Strawberries (and more precisely, garden strawberries) are grown by gardeners and gardeners wherever the climate allows. This is a very tasty berry. Unfortunately, this is known to both people and birds. Starlings, thrushes, sparrows, magpies, and even crows will gladly eat both ripe and unripe berries. Summer residents, especially those who do not live on the site permanently, have nothing left. Therefore, it is important to know what can be done to protect the strawberry crop.

How to protect strawberries: mesh and covering material

The most common solution is to cover strawberry beds with a net or covering material. All this can be purchased at construction, agricultural stores or on the Internet. Plastic, polypropylene or metal mesh with cells in the form of rhombuses, rectangles and squares does not interfere with access to sunlight and moisture to plants, as well as the process of pollination of strawberries by insects.

The grid for beds is presented in stores in the widest range

Breathable opaque covering material (Lutrasil, Spunbond, Agril, Agrospan) provides a greenhouse effect. Birds do not see berries, respectively, and do not seek to get into the garden. But pollination in a natural way in this case is impossible. Without the sun, strawberry bushes do not grow well, the berries ripen longer, the yield decreases. With excessive watering, rotting of plantings is possible.

Covering material allows you to hide the crop from birds

Closing the bed, pegs are driven in at intervals of 45–50 cm along the perimeter, onto which the material is fastened so that it descends to the ground. There it also needs to be fixed, for example, with bricks. They are pulled tight enough so that the mesh does not sag in the center. The height of the structure is 15–20 cm higher than the strawberry bushes.

Video: how to fix covering material on the garden bed?

Indeed, it is problematic for birds to get to the berries in this case, but the solution is not without drawbacks:

It is necessary to find a sufficiently dense fine mesh. Ordinary fishing will not work. Birds freely enter the cells. If the mesh is too thin, it will simply break. Therefore, finding the right material can take a lot of time and effort.
Question price. If you have a small plot and 1-2 beds, you should not even think about it. And those who grow strawberries on an industrial scale must purchase hundreds of square meters of covering material and netting. It turns out to be quite difficult.
Planting care becomes much more difficult. It is also impossible to walk through the garden, picking a couple of berries along the way. With any weeding, loosening, fertilizing, watering, harvesting, the mesh and material must be removed, and then the bed should be covered again. Such frequent use drastically reduces the life of the material - holes are formed, which are immediately expanded by birds.
Birds that see delicious berries do not consider the net a serious hindrance. In an effort to reach them at all costs, they become entangled and stuck in such a way that they cannot free themselves from the cells without outside help. People have to help. Birds do not appreciate this and bite painfully.
An important factor is aesthetic. The mesh just thrown over the beds looks very messy. So, you need to think about how to fix it beautifully. This means additional expenditure of effort, time and money.

The mesh stretched over the beds interferes with the normal care of strawberries and harvesting

The purchase of a set of special frame arcs made of metal, plastic or bamboo can partially offset the shortcomings. They are quite light, so no foundation is required. Their number depends on the length of the beds. The optimal distance between the arcs is 60–80 cm. They must be installed and the grid must be fixed on top - a structure should be obtained that resembles a section of a tunnel. If you find high enough arcs, you can go inside, like in a greenhouse or greenhouse. This greatly facilitates the care of plantings and harvesting. But the beds are very narrow.

When fruiting is over, the mesh is removed, and the frame is dismantled until next year.

Therefore, the best solution is a mesh made of plastic, fine-meshed (so that birds do not get confused), rather rigid (so that it does not sag), fixed on frame arcs. Separate pieces will be needed to cover the resulting "tunnel" from the ends. Otherwise, the design loses all meaning.

If you decide to use the mesh and arc method, the birds will not be able to get to the strawberries, and it will be convenient for you to take care of the beds.

Video: strawberry bed protection net

Box with mesh lids

Another option for protecting strawberries with a net is devoid of the listed disadvantages, but requires certain practical skills. If you have experience in carpentry or joinery, build boxes with mesh covers for planting.

The algorithm of actions is as follows:

Choose boards of suitable length and width.
Assemble a wooden box with cross lintels every 60-80 cm, fastening the boards with screws and corner bars. It is not necessary to make it very high - ventilation is deteriorating, the berries do not have enough sun. It is enough that the future cover does not touch the landings. Other parameters are determined by the size of the beds.
Attach legs from short bars to the box in each corner, sharpening them from below. If the bed is very long, you will need additional legs on the long side. Since the legs will be driven into the ground, treat the tree with a special compound that prevents rotting. You can just burn them.
Set the box on the bed and drive the legs into the ground, gently tapping on the corners with a hammer.
Protect the structure from the negative effects of natural factors - rain, snow, cold, wind. A primer will help with this. It is sold in hardware stores, but the composition prepared by yourself is no worse. 1 kg of slaked lime should be diluted in 2 liters of water and 100 g of laundry soap shavings should be added. All this is thoroughly mixed and filtered immediately before processing the boards.
Focusing on the dimensions of the resulting sections, assemble frames for covers from thin bars.
Attach the lids to the frame using hanging loops installed on the outside so that it opens outward.
Cut out pieces of mesh of the desired size and fasten it with staples using a furniture stapler, bent small nails, thin slats.
Attach a handle, a loop or something else to each lid, allowing it to be opened freely.

The beds in the boxes look very neat and securely protected.

What can scare the birds?

Any methods common to the people are not very useful. In the first few days, the effect may be noticeable, but the birds are not stupid and quickly figure out what they are dealing with. Finding that there is no real danger from something scary-looking, they boldly continue to destroy your berries.

Birds flying into the garden in flocks can destroy your crop in a couple of days

Therefore, the methods described below should be alternated and combined as often as possible. Only in this way will you achieve a more or less permanent result.

Scarecrow

"Grandfather" method, used since time immemorial. At present, the classic effigy of two cross-shaped poles or boards, dressed in old clothes stuffed with straw, with a bag depicting a head, is practically not used for quite obvious reasons. Birds are not at all afraid of him. On the contrary, on the “shoulders” of this structure, they are happy to relax after a delicious dinner. It is also a great position for looking out for the most delicious and ripe berries.

But your children will get great pleasure from the process of building a scarecrow. For them, this is a great opportunity to show imagination and creativity. As a basis, you can use, for example, an old mannequin.

If you still decide to protect your beds with a scarecrow, regularly rearrange it from place to place and change its appearance. The more radical the better. It is also useful to fix the structure so that it rotates on a support.

Scarecrow - a traditional, but ineffective method of scaring away birds

Somewhat more effective are plastic and rubber naturalistic models of birds of prey sold in agricultural stores, made in compliance with dimensions and proportions. Especially if they are “decorated” with something shiny and they are accompanied by a device for reproducing and recording the sounds made by these birds.

An electrified mannequin equipped with a motion sensor would greatly help gardeners and gardeners, which, when birds approach, would begin to make sounds and, for example, wave their “arms”. But the introduction of such structures into production is a matter of the future. And the price will be appropriate. On small personal plots, such a “scarecrow” simply will not pay off.

Video: how to make a scarecrow?

Noise

The hearing of birds is much more subtle than that of humans. Therefore, they do not tolerate sharp loud sounds. Try to save the beds like this:

Stretch several threads or thin wires over them and hang cans close to each other at different heights. A more aesthetic option is “wind music”. At the slightest breath, the jars and tubes will swing and hit each other, making noise. But you will have to endure it too. This is especially "pleasant" late at night or early in the morning. And every day you can quickly get tired of removing cans and hanging them back. In addition, the wind does not always blow.
Every day, turn on special audio recordings that reproduce the calls of birds of prey or the cries of feathered "pests", signaling danger to relatives. They are sold in gardening stores and online. If you want to save money, just turn the radio up loud. However, such a soundtrack will most likely not please your neighbors.

Color and shine

High posts are driven into the corners of the beds. A thin rope or wire is stretched along the perimeter and crosswise at different heights. Hang on it:

Old CDs and DVDs. Fluctuating under the gusts of wind, they reflect the sun's rays, discarding the "bunnies". But in cloudy weather, birds almost do not pay attention to them.
Unnecessary Christmas decorations, “rain” and tinsel, ordinary foil, as well as polyethylene or cellophane cut into “fringe”. The beds in this case look elegant and festive. But if you overdo it with "decorations", it is almost impossible to care for them.
A tape removed from an audio or video cassette. It can be hung in the form of a fringe and additionally pulled tight around the perimeter, surrounding the bed several times. The tape not only shines and moves, but also makes a rattling sound unpleasant for birds at the slightest breath. It is almost on the verge of ultrasound, therefore it is almost inaudible for a person.
Bandages, white ribbons, flags and balloons filled with helium. There is an opinion that birds do not like white color and are afraid of it. The balls can be given an even more intimidating look by painting something resembling an eye in red, blue or black paint.
Homemade turntables from plastic bottles. Plastic reflects light, and the structure rotates in the wind. It can be a spectacular addition to garden decor.

Birds quickly realize that all this glitter and rustle does not carry any real danger.

Old disks hanging over the garden glare in the sun, scaring away birds.

Special devices

Science does not stand still, so special devices that scare away birds have appeared on sale. Most often, they are equipped with a built-in infrared or laser motion sensor, therefore they turn on only when a feathered landing approaches.

The devices emit high-range sounds that are unpleasant for birds, indistinguishable by the human ear.

The device is equipped with a motion sensor.

There are also devices that periodically make loud sharp sounds, reminiscent of the howl of a siren, claps or shots. Sometimes this is complemented by flashing or glowing. On some, you can adjust the frequency and volume of the sound.

The sonic gun emits loud noises when birds approach

Such devices are certainly effective, but they are quite expensive. Therefore, the owners of small personal plots do not even consider the possibility of such an acquisition. The harvest is not worth it, there are less costly methods to protect it.

Video: how to scare away birds

What to plant for distraction?

Gardeners who sympathize with Greenpeace, IFAW and other wildlife organizations can offer birds an alternative food source.

A row with strawberry beds is planted with berries that ripen at about the same time as strawberries, the loss of which will upset you less. It can be bird cherry, sea buckthorn, shadberry, chokeberry and red mountain ash, wild cherry. The method does not guarantee anything. Birds are not obligated to eat only the berries intended for them. It is very likely that they will destroy both them and the strawberries. But not a single feathered one will suffer. Even morally, seeing the berries and not being able to get to them.

How else can you protect the harvest grown with such difficulty?

The easiest way is to increase the landing area. So there will be enough berries for both the birds and you. But not all summer residents are ready to share with the "freeloaders" the crop, for the cultivation of which so much time, effort and money have been spent. In fact, almost no one is ready, except for some fanatical nature lovers.
Get a cat, preferably several. Or at least periodically lure neighbors or stray animals to you. To do this, you can, for example, plant valerian. Hunting, as a rule, turns out to be unsuccessful, but the very fact of the presence of natural enemies on the site will make the birds be less arrogant. A significant disadvantage is that animals that are carried away by the process of catching birds can strongly trample the beds. And not just with strawberries. In addition, the presence of wild cats and small children on the site at the same time means the need for constant surveillance of them by their parents.
Birds of prey (hawks, falcons) are much better and more effective than cats. Ravens are also useful in this sense. They do not trample the beds and do not eat strawberries. Before visiting your site, a flock of birds sends "scouts" ahead. They will certainly inform the rest about those who protect your plantings, and will fly around the beds on the tenth road. However, the maintenance of one hunting bird costs more than a dozen cats.
Arrange a small stream, a waterfall next to the strawberry plantings, put a decorative fountain. The hearing of birds is much sharper than that of humans, they will certainly be attracted by coolness and murmuring water. There is a chance that, flocking to the water source, they will ignore the beds. But nothing prevents them from resting in a pleasant place, then destroying your harvest.
Arrange onions or onion feathers cut into several pieces on strawberry beds. Birds do not like this smell very much. The downside is that you also have to endure it. In addition, berries can also absorb the smell.
Before the strawberries ripen, scatter bright red wooden cubes, plastic bottle caps, and so on around the beds and next to them. Birds will try to peck at them and find that they are inedible. When the berries ripen, the birds, remembering the absence of anything edible here, will pay less attention to your beds.
An option for the squeamish and strong in spirit. Find a dead bird somewhere, bring it to your own yard and hang it next to the strawberry beds. This will help you get rid of birds not only for this season, but for the next few years. It looks rather unaesthetic, by no means decorating the rural pastoral, and the smell is appropriate.
Laying out poisonous baits on the site or total shooting of birds. An extremely unfortunate decision, even if you have the appropriate skills to exclude accidental hits on relatives, guests and neighbors, and there are no pets that can also be poisoned. Few people think about this, but in addition to the visible harm in the form of crop destruction, birds bring significant benefits to the garden. In addition to berries, they feed on insect pest larvae and weed seeds. Now we have to fight them. By destroying the birds, you will deprive insects of natural enemies, increasing their population at times, and also condemn yourself to endless weeding. This will require even more time and effort.

Garden strawberries are a widespread agricultural crop grown all over the world. Long years of selection (strawberries have been grown since about 1300) have led to the fact that the crop can be obtained even in the most unfavorable climate. Different ones differ in color, size and shape of the fruit, aroma, degree of fertility, the period of flowering and ripening of berries, and the degree of susceptibility to diseases. However, even inexperienced gardeners can grow this crop.

It cannot be said that it belongs to unpretentious plants, but subject to certain rules, it will delight you with a high yield. True, the question arises: "How to keep the crop from birds?" All birds with great pleasure eat ripe and sweet fruits, and sometimes are content with unripe ones. In any case, there is practically nothing left for a person. Therefore, protecting strawberries from birds becomes a paramount task. There are quite a few ways, it remains to determine which one will be the most effective.

How to protect strawberries from birds with a special net

Mechanical protection is the most radical and, perhaps, the most effective method. Bird netting for strawberries is available at any farm supply store. It is made of plastic, most often polypropylene, with square or diamond-shaped small cells. Such a network provides protection of the crop from birds, while not preventing the penetration of water and sunlight to the plants. In addition, such protection does not interfere with the pollination of plants, the net does not need to be removed during spraying.

How to protect strawberries from birds with a scarecrow

Representing a straw bag in a hat and with panicles, today it is practically not used. Birds get used to it very quickly and soon stop responding to it. A much more effective method of scaring away would be thin cellophane tapes swaying from the slightest breath of wind. For the same purpose, you can use old tapes from cassettes, which not only sway, but also shimmer in the sun.

How to protect strawberries from birds with noise

Garden rattles or carbide cannons, firing at regular intervals, work well at first, but over time, birds get used to loud and sharp sounds. You can periodically change the frequency of noise effects, but this technique requires constant human control.

How to protect strawberries from birds with distraction crops

This method of protection is the most humane in relation to birds, and all nature lovers should appreciate it. In order to distract birds from garden strawberries, you can plant several fruit trees on your site: bird cherry, sea buckthorn, wild cherry. The disadvantage of this method is that there is no guarantee that the birds will prefer to eat only the berries intended for them.

The most unsuccessful method was recognized as total destruction, when birds are poisoned or shot. The effect is either zero or leads to the exact opposite result - a lot of insect pests appear on the beds, which destroy all the fruits with even greater speed.

How to protect the strawberry crop from birds?

How to protect strawberries: mesh and covering material

: how to fix covering material on the garden bed?

Indeed, it is problematic for birds to get to the berries in this case, but the solution is not without drawbacks:

It is necessary to find a sufficiently dense fine mesh. Ordinary fishing will not work. Birds freely enter the cells. If the mesh is too thin, it will simply break. Therefore, finding the right material can take a lot of time and effort.
Question price. If you have a small plot and 1-2 beds, you should not even think about it. And those who grow strawberries on an industrial scale must purchase hundreds of square meters of covering material and netting. It turns out to be quite difficult.
Planting care becomes much more difficult. It is also impossible to walk through the garden, picking a couple of berries along the way. With any weeding, loosening, fertilizing, watering, harvesting, the mesh and material must be removed, and then the bed should be covered again. Such frequent use drastically reduces the life of the material - holes are formed, which are immediately expanded by birds.
Birds that see delicious berries do not consider the net a serious hindrance. In an effort to reach them at all costs, they become entangled and stuck in such a way that they cannot free themselves from the cells without outside help. People have to help. Birds do not appreciate this and bite painfully.
An important factor is aesthetic. The mesh just thrown over the beds looks very messy. So, you need to think about how to fix it beautifully. This means additional expenditure of effort, time and money.

The mesh stretched over the beds interferes with the normal care of strawberries and harvesting

When fruiting is over, the mesh is removed, and the frame is dismantled until next year.

If you decide to use the mesh and arc method, the birds will not be able to get to the strawberries, and it will be convenient for you to take care of the beds.

: strawberry bed protection net

Box with mesh lids

The algorithm of actions is as follows:

Choose boards of suitable length and width.
Assemble a wooden box with cross lintels every 60-80 cm, fastening the boards with screws and corner bars. It is not necessary to make it very high - ventilation is deteriorating, the berries do not have enough sun. It is enough that the future cover does not touch the landings. Other parameters are determined by the size of the beds.
Attach legs from short bars to the box in each corner, sharpening them from below. If the bed is very long, you will need additional legs on the long side. Since the legs will be driven into the ground, treat the tree with a special compound that prevents rotting. You can just burn them.
Set the box on the bed and drive the legs into the ground, gently tapping on the corners with a hammer.
Protect the structure from the negative effects of natural factors - rain, snow, cold, wind. A primer will help with this. It is sold in hardware stores, but the composition prepared by yourself is no worse. 1 kg of slaked lime should be diluted in 2 liters of water and 100 g of laundry soap shavings should be added. All this is thoroughly mixed and filtered immediately before processing the boards.
Focusing on the dimensions of the resulting sections, assemble frames for covers from thin bars.
Attach the lids to the frame using hanging loops installed on the outside so that it opens outward.
Cut out pieces of mesh of the desired size and fasten it with staples using a furniture stapler, bent small nails, thin slats.
Attach a handle, a loop or something else to each lid, allowing it to be opened freely.

The beds in the boxes look very neat and securely protected.

What can scare the birds?

Therefore, the methods described below should be alternated and combined as often as possible. Only in this way will you achieve a more or less permanent result.

Scarecrow

: how to make a scarecrow?

Noise

The hearing of birds is much more subtle than that of humans. Therefore, they do not tolerate sharp loud sounds. Try to save the beds like this:

Stretch several threads or thin wires over them and hang cans close to each other at different heights. A more aesthetic option is “wind music”. At the slightest breath, the jars and tubes will swing and hit each other, making noise. But you will have to endure it too. This is especially "pleasant" late at night or early in the morning. And every day you can quickly get tired of removing cans and hanging them back. In addition, the wind does not always blow.
Every day, turn on special audio recordings that reproduce the calls of birds of prey or the cries of feathered "pests", signaling danger to relatives. They are sold in gardening stores and online. If you want to save money, just turn the radio up loud. However, such a soundtrack will most likely not please your neighbors.

Color and shine

High posts are driven into the corners of the beds. A thin rope or wire is stretched along the perimeter and crosswise at different heights. Hang on it:

Old CDs and DVDs. Fluctuating under the gusts of wind, they reflect the sun's rays, discarding the "bunnies". But in cloudy weather, birds almost do not pay attention to them.
Unnecessary Christmas decorations, “rain” and tinsel, ordinary foil, as well as polyethylene or cellophane cut into “fringe”. The beds in this case look elegant and festive. But if you overdo it with "decorations", it is almost impossible to care for them.
A tape removed from an audio or video cassette. It can be hung in the form of a fringe and additionally pulled tight around the perimeter, surrounding the bed several times. The tape not only shines and moves, but also makes a rattling sound unpleasant for birds at the slightest breath. It is almost on the verge of ultrasound, therefore it is almost inaudible for a person.
Bandages, white ribbons, flags and balloons filled with helium. There is an opinion that birds do not like white color and are afraid of it. The balls can be given an even more intimidating look by painting something resembling an eye in red, blue or black paint.
Homemade turntables from plastic bottles. Plastic reflects light, and the structure rotates in the wind. It can be a spectacular addition to garden decor.

Birds quickly realize that all this glitter and rustle does not carry any real danger.

Special devices

The devices emit high-range sounds that are unpleasant for birds, indistinguishable by the human ear.

: how to scare away birds

What to plant for distraction?

Gardeners who sympathize with Greenpeace, IFAW and other wildlife organizations can offer birds an alternative food source.

A row with strawberry beds is planted with berries that ripen at about the same time as strawberries, the loss of which will upset you less. It can be bird cherry, sea buckthorn, shadberry, chokeberry and red mountain ash, wild cherry. The method does not guarantee anything. Birds are not obligated to eat only the berries intended for them. It is very likely that they will destroy both them and the strawberries. But not a single feathered one will suffer. Even morally, seeing the berries and not being able to get to them.

Other ways to protect berries

How else can you protect the harvest grown with such difficulty?

The easiest way is to increase the landing area. So there will be enough berries for both the birds and you. But not all summer residents are ready to share with the "freeloaders" the crop, for the cultivation of which so much time, effort and money have been spent. In fact, almost no one is ready, except for some fanatical nature lovers.
Get a cat, preferably several. Or at least periodically lure neighbors or stray animals to you. To do this, you can, for example, plant valerian. Hunting, as a rule, turns out to be unsuccessful, but the very fact of the presence of natural enemies on the site will make the birds be less arrogant. A significant disadvantage is that animals that are carried away by the process of catching birds can strongly trample the beds. And not just with strawberries. In addition, the presence of wild cats and small children on the site at the same time means the need for constant surveillance of them by their parents.
Birds of prey (hawks, falcons) are much better and more effective than cats. Ravens are also useful in this sense. They do not trample the beds and do not eat strawberries. Before visiting your site, a flock of birds sends "scouts" ahead. They will certainly inform the rest about those who protect your plantings, and will fly around the beds on the tenth road. However, the maintenance of one hunting bird costs more than a dozen cats.
Arrange a small stream, a waterfall next to the strawberry plantings, put a decorative fountain. The hearing of birds is much sharper than that of humans, they will certainly be attracted by coolness and murmuring water. There is a chance that, flocking to the water source, they will ignore the beds. But nothing prevents them from resting in a pleasant place, then destroying your harvest.
Arrange onions or onion feathers cut into several pieces on strawberry beds. Birds do not like this smell very much. The downside is that you also have to endure it. In addition, berries can also absorb the smell.
Before the strawberries ripen, scatter bright red wooden cubes, plastic bottle caps, and so on around the beds and next to them. Birds will try to peck at them and find that they are inedible. When the berries ripen, the birds, remembering the absence of anything edible here, will pay less attention to your beds.
An option for the squeamish and strong in spirit. Find a dead bird somewhere, bring it to your own yard and hang it next to the strawberry beds. This will help you get rid of birds not only for this season, but for the next few years. It looks rather unaesthetic, by no means decorating the rural pastoral, and the smell is appropriate.
Laying out poisonous baits on the site or total shooting of birds. An extremely unfortunate decision, even if you have the appropriate skills to exclude accidental hits on relatives, guests and neighbors, and there are no pets that can also be poisoned. Few people think about this, but in addition to the visible harm in the form of crop destruction, birds bring significant benefits to the garden. In addition to berries, they feed on insect pest larvae and weed seeds. Now we have to fight them. By destroying the birds, you will deprive insects of natural enemies, increasing their population at times, and also condemn yourself to endless weeding. This will require even more time and effort.

There is always a person on the Internet who will share his experience. And we will remember. And tell your ways.

I think many gardeners are faced with the problem of how to protect their strawberry plantation from gluttonous birds. Especially if there is a forest near the site, where the birds feel very at ease. I ran into the same problem a few years ago. Sparrows have come to our site. They fly into strawberry beds in a whole flock and choose the largest and ripest berries! I began to look for a cardinal way that you can do it yourself for protecting strawberries from birds.

I read a lot of literature. Found a lot of suggestions there. The most radical way, which is mostly suggested, is to cover the strawberry plantation with fine mesh. A good, effective method, but has several disadvantages. You need to find such a network somewhere. On sale is not always needed. Then, when enough berries are ripe for picking, the net can be removed for a while. And if you decide to just feast on a few berries from the garden? It is inconvenient to open the grid every time. And aesthetically, a bed with strawberries tightened with a net does not look very good.

It is proposed to put a scarecrow on the beds. But our birds have long chosen the shoulders of this stuffed animal to look out for sweeter berries.

Another way is to hang empty cans in pairs. During the wind they will rattle and scare away the birds. And when there is no wind?

In one place I found a very interesting way to scare away birds using old CDs! It is necessary to pierce a hole along the edge of the old disk, thread the twine and hang it all next to the beds. Disks shimmering in the sun will scare away birds. I wonder where I can get a bunch of old CDs? Well, I have two or three. which it will not be a pity to make a hole.

And this method prompted me to a rather simple idea. Well, it's done. I put small pegs from the ends of the beds, about a meter high. He pulled a string between them. Then he rummaged through a box of Christmas decorations. I think that almost everyone at home has such a box in a treasured corner and is waiting for the next New Year's holiday. And I found something interesting. Christmas tree rain! Long, narrow strips of bright, shiny polyethylene. In! I tied the raindrops to the stretched twine and began to observe. And it did work! The raindrops are very light and at the slightest movement of air they begin to “move” and sparkle. Sparrow robbers flew in a couple of times, circled and circled, but did not dare to sit down. And that's all. I didn't see any more birds in the area. And our strawberry beds looked festive and elegantly decorated until autumn.

In our organization, Mikhalych works as a truck driver - he is a master of his craft, a workaholic and a good friend of mine. He lives in his private house, in the suburbs. Like any decent owner of a private house, he has a garden, a vegetable garden and keeps some domestic animals. In Mikhalych's garden, among other things, several relatively young cherry trees grow, which began to bear fruit seven or eight years ago. However, for all this time, Mikhalych never managed to feast on his own cherries ...

The reason for this turned out to be cute, but extremely harmful birds - fieldfare thrushes. Having settled in the nearest forest belt, they became a real disaster for local gardeners, regularly raiding their gardens and pecking out more or less berries that had begun to ripen.

And he is!

For several years in a row, after his cherries began to bear fruit, Mikhalych alone unsuccessfully tried to resist this feathered misfortune; however, every year a flock of thrushes prevailed, almost completely depriving him of the crop. Therefore, when three years ago, brought to the "white heat" Mikhalych, in a conversation, complained about his "offenders", I simply could not leave a friend in trouble and agreed to give him all possible help.

The behavior of these birds seemed very unusual to us, completely different from that imagined by a layman who is far from ornithology. Much later, while studying this issue on some forum on the Internet, we came across a statement by our "colleague in misfortune", comparing a flock of these malware with an "organized criminal group (OCG)". In our experience, we have seen that it is impossible to characterize them more precisely. One got the impression that we were waging war not against some "mindless birds", but against "specific boys" from the 1990s - experienced warriors who were dismissed from the army and joined the ranks of all kinds of bandit groups.

At first glance, the tactics of these extremely intelligent birds seem almost unbelievable. First, one or two "reconnaissance aircraft" appear from the "main location" (i.e. forest belts), firstly, choosing the next "object of attack" (a bush or tree on which the largest number of very ripe berries hangs), secondly second, checking if there are any dangers on the way to the selected object. "Air reconnaissance" almost never fly directly to a chosen tree. Sitting down somewhere nearby (on the branches of neighboring trees, a fence, garden buildings), they carefully observe the surrounding area for several minutes. At this time, sometimes you can hear their "negotiations" - a short series of crackling sounds reminiscent of the cries of a magpie (only more melodic). After making sure that the chosen object of robbery is really worthy of their attention, and there are no signs of danger around it, the "scouts" silently fly back to the forest belt. A few minutes after they safely return to their relatives, from the forest belt quickly and silently - in the most bandit way - the whole flock flies to the explored place (in our case, a dozen and a half birds), after which they just as quickly and silently accepted for food.

It seems to be an idyllic landscape: a peaceful blue sky, beautiful white clouds...

But if you take a closer look, then here it is - ENEMY SCOUT!

The voracity of these birds breaks all records. It has long been known that all birds generally have a high metabolism (fast metabolism) - but, after observing the feasting thrushes, the thought involuntarily creeps into the head that there is a real nuclear reactor inside them. A dozen birds per day are quite capable of completely picking off a large fruit-bearing tree. At the same time, everything is done by them quickly and clearly - no noise, hubbub, fights and fluttering, which is typical, for example, of crows or jackdaws. The notorious advice of some gardeners who do not encounter thrushes in their backyard - "and you, they say, pick the berries as they ripen, and the thrushes will have nothing to eat" - even after a short acquaintance with these gluttons, it begins to seem not just naive, but mocking. Perfectly distinguishing colors and being naturally very smart, thrushes perfectly understand which berries in front of them are ripe or not very ripe. First of all, don't be fools, they peck out the most ripe, ending the feast with fruits of medium ripeness. And if we take into account the almost constant presence of their "scouts" in the garden and regular raids four or five times an hour, it becomes clear that they simply do not leave the gardener a single chance to get ahead.

For the first time, we tried to drive these annoying birds away from the Mikhalychev Garden in the summer of 2014. Having no previous experience in fighting thrushes and not suspecting their overwhelming arrogance, we, of course, started with the simplest - "classic" ways to scare away birds - stuffed animals, turntables, balloons and CDs. How deeply we were mistaken, seriously counting on these "means"!

First of all, Mikhalych made an attempt to make a stuffed animal from a set of stakes, rails, a bag of sawdust, an old dressing gown and a hat - successful in terms of results (the stuffed animal succeeded), but absolutely useless in essence (it did not help). On the first day after the installation of the effigy, the "scouts" of the thrushes were really afraid to approach the trees, under which stood something resembling a person. According to the household members of Mikhalych, their alarming chatter was constantly heard. However, the next morning, the damage done to the cherry was evident.

Our response was to visit the local "FixPrice" store, which sells cheap Chinese consumer goods, and purchase several windmills made of colored film, which were fixed to the fence and driven into the ground around the cherries. The second attempt ended in an even greater failure than the first - the feathered insolent people stopped paying attention to the flickering nonsense by the end of the first day.

After that, several days were spent on experiments with balloons, which also did not end in anything worthwhile. The thrushes reacted to the balls fixed in place of the windmills in the same way as they did to the windmills - that is, in no way, and when fixing the balls directly on the cherry branches, it was found that under the influence of even weak gusts of wind, the balls prick into small twigs and knots, therefore " project" was curtailed by the authors themselves.

A very popular “advice” on the Internet was the recommendation to hang computer CDs on the branches of trees protected from birds, unlike balls that are not afraid of pins on branches, rotating on a suspension even from a light breeze and at the same time letting out bright sun glare in all directions. No sooner said than done! The next day, upon arrival at work, I carried out an audit in a box with CDs, as a result of which two dozen useless branded disks with Kaspersky Anti-Virus were found from "boxed versions" once purchased for the entire office. The disks were handed to Mikhalych with a recommendation to hang them up so that nothing interferes with their rotation... It was one of those rare cases when even the vaunted "Kaspersky" turned out to be absolutely powerless against a new variety of "feathered viruses".

Another "recipe" for scaring away birds was gleaned from the magazine "My Beautiful Dacha", which consists in fixing children's soft toys on the branches of trees, which, according to the author of the article, were supposed to remind birds of cats lurking on a tree. Somewhere in the attic, Mikhalych managed to find several old soft toys left by his grown granddaughter - a small brown bear, a hare and someone else. But either these smart thrushes can distinguish between animal species, or they instinctively distinguish living objects from non-living ones, but this method also did not bring any useful effect.

In the "Gardener-Ogorodnik" store, as the most effective means for protecting fruits from damage by birds, we were recommended a special fine-mesh net made of synthetic threads. After some deliberation, it was decided to purchase a roll of net and see how it performs. Perhaps such a network could be a solution to the problem, if not for two shortcomings of its application, identified during the "field tests". Firstly, in order to provide at least some effective protection, the network needs not just a lot, but a lot - that is, the trees must be wrapped with it, as they say, "under the root". In the case of a simple attack on a tree from top to side, our feathered intellectuals, after several unsuccessful attempts to get to the ripening berries in the usual way, learned to very deftly crawl under the net from below. Secondly, the net poses a danger to various bird trifles like sparrows, wagtails, flycatchers and the like, either not causing any harm to fruit trees at all, or causing the most minimal. Having become accustomed to "snooping" in the crowns of trees, small fry get entangled in the cells of the net and die. After extracting the third or fourth hangman from the interweaving of synthetic threads, Mikhalych felt sorry for them so much that, waving his hand at the cherry, he simply took off the net.

It goes without saying that while we were inventing all these tricks for the thrushes, the birds did not waste time in vain and were closely engaged in our cherries. Thus, by the end of the safety net test, we had lost the battle for the harvest 5:0 in favor of the thrushes in the first season. It became clear that, in the language of professional military theorists, "remaining within the framework of an outdated concept, we will never be able to defeat the enemy." And in general, the twenty-first century is in the yard - what scarecrows, what are you talking about ?! You give the use of the latest tools from the sphere of "high technologies"!

Starting from the first days of June of the next year, 2015, Mikhalych and I, having learned from bitter experience, came to grips with the study of various technical devices specially designed to scare away birds. After a couple of days of surfing the Internet in my free time, it became clear that, if we do not take into account the anti-additive devices that are meaningless in our conditions (it's like wrapping a tree with barbed wire) and various extreme options like a metal mesh, to which a current of several thousand volts is connected, then almost 95% of the market for such devices is made up of electronic sound bird repellers.

The choice of repeller models is the most diverse, as they say, "for every taste and color" - from a cheap (relatively) Chinese "noname" for 5 thousand rubles, which, according to the instructions, continuously emits ultrasound, to "professional" devices with motion sensors costing about 25 thousand rubles. Of course, I am not a professional ornithologist and do not pretend to be the ultimate truth, but the very principle of scaring away birds with ultrasound caused me great doubts. From everything that I have ever heard or read, we can conclude that, according to their "technical characteristics", the organs of perception of a person are much closer to birds than to mammals. And in humans, as you know, ultrasound does not cause any discomfort. Therefore, I considered that spending even 5 thousand rubles on the purchase of a device whose effectiveness reviews are absent, and the result of the application is guesswork, does not make sense. Here it’s not even a matter of whether it’s a lot or a little - the five thousand requested for the device - but that with this money our Mikhalych can easily buy a few buckets of cherries for himself, while not bothering with its protection at all. But buying cherries when there are plenty of them in your own garden, recognizing the victory of small feathered pests, is already too much. Looking further, just out of interest, without any hope of application, options for various repellers, I came across a professional model that scares away birds with the cries of other birds of prey.

But this is an idea! Could it be that these thrushes were not afraid of anyone or anything at all? And who in natural conditions is the most terrible enemy for them? Obviously, any large birds of prey they know, the fear of which is programmed at the level of instincts... some device that will simulate the presence of nearby predators; at the same time, it is highly desirable that it be as cheap as possible - or, ideally, free of charge at all.

Having strained my memory a little, I decided that, perhaps, I could find such a device, and went down to the basement - to the warehouse. After rummaging around a bit, I found an old, decommissioned laptop "Toshiba Satellite A40" from a dense 2002 release. For lovers of details, I can report that this miracle is equipped with a 15-inch screen, a Pentium 4 processor with a frequency of 2.4GHz, 256MB of RAM and a 40GB hard drive. The preinstalled operating system is Windows XP Home. Oddly enough, the “machine” turned out to be on the move, which, however, I expected - after all, it was written off, apparently, not because of moral obsolescence or technical wear and tear, but because of the most typical damage for laptops - a cracked screen. The previous owner of the laptop probably dropped it off the table, so about a third of the screen surface adjacent to the upper right corner was a solid black "blot". Of course, after that, you can safely forget not only about the convenience of work, but also about its very possibility on such a laptop. Well, it doesn't bother us at all.

You can see a large black spot (damage to the matrix) of the laptop screen with rays of cracks radiating from it.

Now it was necessary to decide by what criteria the laptop should "voice". On the websites of specialized companies that protect such large objects from birds as airfields / railway stations / stadiums, it is very often stated that the startling sounds should be given randomly so that the frightened birds do not develop habituation to evenly given signals. To be honest, I was already going to "cook up on my knee" a primitive program based on a random number generator; however, an evening visit to Mikhalych, followed by observation of his "wards", forced him to abandon this idea. The fact is that the above method is justified only if the birds live in a protected area. Our thrushes, on the other hand, only quickly visit the garden for feeding, therefore, if the random number generator initiates the second signal forty minutes after the first, the birds will have time to check all the trees, choose the most ripe berries and calmly leave the garden during this time. Given the frequency with which their "scouts" appear in the garden, it became clear that it was simply useless to talk about time intervals exceeding ten minutes.

On other sites, there were descriptions of repeller models equipped with motion sensors. The idea, of course, is very sensible (why yell constantly if you can give a signal only at the moment of the immediate appearance of feathered robbers?), But in our case it is very difficult to implement, as they say, "on the knee", since to connect the motion sensor to the laptop you will need both a specialized adapter and the corresponding software. However, for the sake of "sporting interest" we carried out a "draft version" of the experiment - without any connection to a laptop, purely in order to determine whether it makes sense to further develop this direction. At work, I borrowed an infrared motion sensor of the popular Camelion LX-39/Wh model (very mediocre, but, as they say, "the rich - the happy"). Based on this sensor, a simple circuit was assembled with a household electric bell as an actuating element. The purpose of the experiment was to find out if the motion sensor is suitable for possible further use in a bird scaring system. The results obtained were disappointing - on a sunny summer day, in the heat, the motion sensor, installed at a distance of three meters from the tree trunk, did not react at all to such small objects as birds landing on the crown. Its sensitivity improved as expected in the early morning and evening hours, as well as when the sensor was placed in the shade, but still remained within the "plus or minus bast shoes" range. It remains to be hoped that professional bird repellers are still equipped with much more sensitive motion sensors than a conventional, household "human" sensor. Detecting a mouse running across the floor, as mentioned in many reviews of IR motion sensors posted on the Internet, for the sensor we tested turned out to be unscience fiction - except perhaps in a cool dark basement, on a concrete floor and from a distance of one meter.

Thus, the simplest and most reliable option was to make the laptop constantly "voice" at a predetermined interval of several minutes. True, at the same time, the problem of the possible addiction of our experimental subjects to the same type of sounds remained. Considering that the period of the most active "defense" of the sweet cherry lasts a week and a half (maximum, taking into account bad weather - two), it was decided to be content with changing the sounds emitted by the laptop.

For this purpose, we will visit the electronic version of the guide to the birds of central Russia. [link, www.ornithologist.ru]

There are a large number of various bird identifiers on the network, however, the above one is valuable in that it is possible to download samples of the calls of the birds presented on it without problems. So, we are primarily interested in files with recordings of the voices of large and medium-sized daytime predators - hawks (goshawk and sparrowhawk), falcons (peregrine falcon and saker falcon, there is also the voice of a gyrfalcon, but this is a polar falcon, and we do not have it) , kites (black and red). "To the heap" you can add the voices of buzzards - common and buzzard. The rest of the "contingent" does not suit us - they are either too large (eagles), or, conversely, too small predators (kestrels, red-footed falcons, hobbies), or "specialists" in other game (harriers, ospreys, sea eagles).

We download mp3 files with the voices of the listed birds, giving them "meaningful" names in Latin - for example, Teterevjatnik.mp3 or Baloban.mp3, so as not to get confused in the future. We transfer them to some convenient place (I placed them directly "at the root" of the D :) logical drive. In the same place, we create ordinary text files according to the number of bird voices, rename them, for example, to bird_1 (2/3/...) and forcibly change the extension to cmd. Insert the following text into the files themselves:

ping 127.0.0.1 -n 338 >nul
start "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe" D:\Teterevjatnik.mp3
start D:\bird_2.cmd
exit

The meaning of this batch file is as follows: the computer is invited to ping the address 127.0.0.1 (i.e., itself), and after a period of 338 (-n 338) seconds (the standard ping is repeated every second in case of a response), play back using a standard media player mp3 file with the cry of a goshawk, simultaneously running the batch file bird_2.cmd for execution, and then exiting (meaning the work of the first batch file).

Where did the value of 338 seconds come from? This interval is 5 minutes x 60 seconds plus the length of the hawk call recording (38 seconds in my case). Of course, the duration of different records is also different, so in each file you should recalculate and record the appropriate value. If a virtual Saker Falcon cries for, say, 20 seconds, then in the corresponding batch file you should specify the value -n 320, etc. If you do not do this and set the same intervals, over time the recordings will be played closer and closer to each other. friend in time, and after a couple of hours, all your virtual predators will yell at the same time.

There can be any number of such files, the main thing is that there should be cyclicity; in other words, the last batch file must have a link to the first file. After that, it remains only to throw the shortcut of the first batch file (bird_1.cmd) into "Startup".

Practice has shown that the most effective sequence is: "goshawk - peregrine falcon - black kite - sparrowhawk - saker falcon - red kite" at intervals of 5 to 10 minutes.

While I was working on a laptop, Mikhalych attached to a wooden table, standing not far from the cherries, a "ground floor" under the tabletop, where he planned to install a laptop with a lid not completely lowered, and covered the tabletop with a packing film hanging around the edges.

Place for a laptop.

Laptop for testing.

So, thanks to our joint efforts, Mikhalych managed to harvest sweet cherries for the first time in the last seven years. After the cry of the hawk, which was heard from the laptop, the enemy scout considered it good to retire...

Various comments and clarifications that arose as a result of testing the laptop, as well as plans for the future.

You should not set the maximum volume of the speakers in the audio system settings. The volume should be such that it can be heard within the protected object plus a few meters in each direction. If the volume is so high that the cries of predators will be heard by thrushes even in their permanent habitats, then they will still not abandon their nests because of this, but they will get used to the cries.
It is also worthwhile to seriously approach the choice of the location of the laptop and the volume level of its speakers, so as not to injure poultry (chickens, ducks, guinea fowl, pigeons). If your own or neighbor's chickens hear the cries of feathered predators every 5-10 minutes, then they are guaranteed to have a "nervous" on the second day, and small chickens / ducklings can generally die of fright.
If you see sparrows (and similar trifles) right next to a screaming laptop, do not jump to conclusions about the inefficiency of the system. To scare away such small fry, the voices of other predators (kestrels, falcons, hobby falcons, sparrow owls) are needed, since not a single self-respecting goshawk will chase such an insignificant and nimble prey.
You can greatly increase the efficiency of the system if you manage to find not only the voices of predators, but also the alarm cries of the types of birds that you are going to scare away, and "dilute" your "concert" with them.
Another idea is to use the laptop's built-in webcam as a motion sensor, but that's a work in progress.

Comments

I have not yet tested the effectiveness of the scare, I will start the experiment tomorrow

We forgot about one more (successful, judging by the feedback) experience set by Random Passers-by (see here, comment No. 24):

> [...] In my summer every year, crows (which are black) with their offspring on the high-voltage line got into the habit of sitting in the morning. [...] Here at 3 o'clock the sun rises and at half past four - at five they sit down on a support and start yelling. [...] I downloaded the calls of all kinds of birds of prey from the Internet and turned them on at 5 in the morning. Here, from the cries of the black kite, they crap themselves, they jumped down. And what do you think? So falcons or kites flew in and began to fuck crows and crows. They immediately hide in the bushes and bushes-bushes towards the forest, scattering bricks [...]

R666 your man	23.06.2019 01:47
>..forgot one more thing.. Oh, yes, yes! Sorry .. Maybe there will still be some more info on this occasion? There is an assumption that the direction of the experiments is still correct. Birds respond to reproducible calls of natural enemies, and with significant high-frequency components. >.. with added 1-2-3 min intervals.. Saddam, I also tend to think that when even a fairly long track is played in a loop, listeners get the idea that "something is too right here." So you still need a generator of random delays and / or a switcher for fragments of a phonogram. Something like this..

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