How to protect your crops or fruit from birds?

Cherry trees, apple trees, grapevines, lettuce, seedlings: are your fruit and vegetable harvests being devoured by all sorts of birds? For farmers and individuals alike, starlings, pigeons, and jackdaws can quickly wreak havoc on crops.

Scarecrows

Likely as old as agriculture itself, scarecrows are an inexpensive way to frighten away crows, pigeons, and other birds that attack your seedlings or fruits.
This ranges from the easily imagined humanoid shape to the multicolored ribbon flapping in the wind.
The goal is to have something moving, or even slightly noisy, to scare off the birds.

Inexpensive, but rarely effective: animals quickly get used to them.

Bird-scaring cannons

These are for farmers and market gardeners.
They are bird-scaring cannons, usually connected to a gas cylinder. They emit a detonation sound at regular intervals.

Initially, the very loud and instantaneous noise scares away all birds.
However, after a few days of use, crows and pigeons quickly get used to them too.

But residents, much less so.
Their effectiveness in protecting seedlings is therefore questionable, and they can cause tension with neighbors.

Bird-scaring kites

You've probably seen them in fields: at the end of a flexible pole or rope, a silhouette of a raptor moves in the wind.
The kite imitates the shape and colors of a raptor such as a buzzard or a falcon, a natural predator of pigeons, crows, and other starlings.

Rather economical, easy to install, and effective.
Furthermore, there's no issue of bothering neighbors here.
However, several will need to be installed, and care must be taken to ensure that the birds don't become accustomed to the presence of this predator, which ultimately proves to be unthreatening and never tries to eat them.

Anti-bird nets

Our last tip, which Corderie Gautier offers: anti-bird nets.
They can be placed directly on trees, or installed on large structures that will cover crops and shrubs.

When properly installed, meaning without leaving passages through which birds could pass, they offer very good protection.
Pigeons, starlings, and crows will not pass through the mesh of the anti-bird net and will not be able to eat the seeds or fruits.

With a net model made with smaller, tighter meshes, even the smallest birds will not be able to make their way to that long-awaited meal.

Nets have many advantages compared to other techniques: very effective, reusable for several consecutive years, usable all year round, causes no noise disturbance...

However, for large plots of corn or seedlings, it is less practical or even difficult to implement compared to a bird-scaring kite.

On the other hand, for fruit trees, vineyards, small vegetable gardens, or low crops for market gardeners (lettuce...), an anti-bird net tunnel or placement on trees is an ideal solution.