How to prevent birds from eating fruits

By: Kathee Mierzejewski

Índice Show

How to Keep Birds Off Your Fruit Trees
beneficial birds in your orchard
bandit birds: those you want to keep away from your fruit trees and berry plantings
how to keep birds off of your fruit trees or berry crops?

When it comes to pests, one you really want to protect fruit trees from is birds. Birds can do so much damage to fruit trees, especially once the fruit ripens. There are plenty of things you can do to protect a fruit tree from birds and the damage they can cause. By providing fruit tree bird protection to your fruit trees, you will harvest more fruit.

How to Keep Birds Off Your Fruit Trees

Fruit tree pest control is best done before the fruit ripens. Understanding how to keep birds off your trees is not so difficult. If you want to know how to keep birds off your fruit trees, you need to realize there are various forms of fruit tree pest control. You can trap the birds, you can use bird netting for fruit trees to keep them from getting at the ripening fruit, and you can use chemical repellants to keep the birds and other pests away from your fruit trees.

Trapping

Trapping the birds, especially blackbirds and starlings, can be done when they first show up for the season and up to about 30 days before the fruit ripens. All you do is bait a trap with water and any sort of food that would be attractive to the birds. This is a good form of fruit tree bird protection because once you capture the birds, you can release them.

Check with local laws in your area before killing any birds though, as most birds are considered protected animals and it is illegal to kill them.

Netting

When it comes to bird netting for fruit trees, you want to use about 5/8-inch (2 cm.) netting. This can prevent the birds from reaching the fruits as they ripen. Wire can help you keep the netting away from the fruits, so you don’t damage them while providing fruit tree pest control.

Repellents

Chemical repellents are useful in fruit tree pest control, often helping to protect fruit tree from birds and other pests. Methyl anthranilate is one chemical that can be used. It will have to be repeated if you find that bird damage is continuing.

Hinder is another chemical pest control that can be used. Simply dilute it 20:1 with water and apply it every three to ten days. Also, make sure to reapply after a heavy rain.

Electronic fruit tree bird protection is also available. These electronic devices will keep the birds away by emitting a sound that frightens them.

As you can see, there are many different ways to provide fruit tree bird protection. The purpose of growing your fruit trees is to harvest the fruit. Sometimes sharing the fruit with the birds is inevitable, but you don’t want them to get all the fruits of your labor.

This article was last updated on 02/21/22

Millions of homes and properties in the United States are plagued by birds that enjoy harvesting berries long before they're ripe. There are dozens of varieties of bird control on the market, and most are non-toxic and harmless to birds. It can be hard to figure out which is right for you and your needs, and each type has its pros and cons. Most humane bird control can be divided into several categories: visual scares, taste aversions, roost inhibitors, sonic repellers and ultrasonic disrupters.

Anything that is supposed to irritate or make the birds feel unsafe by appealing to their visual sense is classified as a visual scare. Visual scare devices include objects that are likely to frighten birds away, such as plastic owls and coyotes, Terror-Eyes balloons, and shiny tape. Old CDs also make a good visual deterrent. Tie them from a branch and they will twirl and glint in the sun.

Taste aversions are any chemical, spray, or compound that is applied to anything to make it taste or smell bad to birds. Some are targeted to specific species, like GooseChase, while others are used for a specific purpose, like FruitShield. Most are made from a compound called methyl anthranilate, which comes from grapes and is used as a flavoring. Watch out for some that do not use this compound; make sure that the chemical you are applying is safe for humans and birds.

Roost inhibitors include spikes, chemical barriers, and netting. These are perhaps the most commonly used methods of bird control and are very effective at keeping birds off of ledges, beams, and other outcroppings. Chemical barriers like BirdProof cause the ledge to feel sticky, which birds hate. This is invisible, but it requires re-application every year or so.

Sonic and ultrasonic repellers are sound systems that emit the distress calls of the targeted species, predator calls, other loud noises, or ultrasonic pulses. Sonic repellers are extremely effective if they randomize pitch, frequency, timing, and other factors. Ultrasonic systems emit pulses that bother the birds, but humans cannot hear. They are very similar to sonic systems, only different in the fact that most humans are unaware of their emissions.

Do you want birds in your orchard? Some species can be very damaging to fruit and berry crops, and you will want to keep those birds off your fruit trees. But other bird species can be beneficial. These are the birds that eat insects and help keep insect pest populations under control.

In this article we will review which birds you might want in your orchard. And we'll talk about the bird bandits that you will want to keep far away from your fruit trees and other crops.

A birdhouse designed to attract beneficial birds to protect fruit trees from insect pests. (Photo credit: Mary Nelson)

beneficial birds in your orchard

We at Orchard People encourage orchardists to install birdhouses in their orchards as a way of attracting bug-eating bluebirds or tree swallows. Each day, these birds will chow down on a multitude of flying pests that can ruin the fruit on your growing trees.

For instance, during the growing season, Eastern bluebirds eat huge quantities of insects including snails, grubs, caterpillars, insect larvae, moths and mosquitos. Many of these insects are damaging to fruit trees so Eastern bluebirds help control fruit tree pest populations. Tree swallows have a similar diet and they help keep pest populations in check. (You can learn how to attract beneficial birds to your garden in this post.)

Learn fruit tree pruning, feeding, and pest & disease prevention in our mini-course. $39 USD for a limited time only.

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bandit birds: those you want to keep away from your fruit trees and berry plantings

And yet, anyone who grows fruit knows that birds can also be a nuisance in an orchard, as they peck away at the fruit growing on your trees and berry plantings. Some common bird bandits include red-winged blackbirds, cedar waxwings, American robins, common grackles, house finches and European starlings.

Red winged blackbirds have a varied diet, but they do enjoy eating berries and fruit during the growing season. Photo credit: Unsplash.

how to keep birds off of your fruit trees or berry crops?

Over the years, researchers have developed various ways to keep birds away from our crops as part of Integrated Pest Management. You can learn all about this science and how to apply it in our online course, Integrated Pest Management for Fruit Trees.

Exclusion netting is one tool used to protect fruit trees from bird and insect damage. Watch this video to see City Fruit Seattle volunteers put netting on a fruit tree. Netting should always be put on after petal fall. Video credit: City Fruit Seattle

But here are some approaches that commercial and other growers use:

Planting fruit crops away from common nesting and perch sites like woods and hedgerows.
Using exclusion netting. After pollination, trees or shrubs are covered with exclusion netting to prevent insects and birds from accessing the growing and ripening fruit. You can also use garden netting bags to cover growing fruit clusters.
Installing battery powered, electrical or solar powered auditory scare devices that broadcast bird distress calls or other noises that drive birds away. One option is Birdbusters' Screech Owl which looks like an owl and makes the sounds of birds in distress.
Using visual deterrents to scare birds away. An inexpensive and easy option is reflective scare tape that you tie on tree branches or attach to posts. The tape flutters in the wind and repels birds by reflecting light.
For commercial growers, dancing scarecrows have also become popular. These are the blow up signs that car dealerships use but study shows they do keep damaging birds off fruit trees and vineyards.
Attracting natural predators that prey on birds to the site. Growers may install owl nesting boxes so that the owls prey on the unwanted birds. Some orchards hire companies that bring trained raptors with them to tackle your bird problem and scare bird bandits away.
If none of these methods work for you, you can always distract the bird bandits by installing a squirrel-proof bird feeder somewhere far away from your fruit planting. Let the birds fill up on seeds, grains and nuts so that they leave your fruit trees and berry plants alone!

Some commercial growers use inflatable scarecrows to help prevent birds from damaging their crops. Photo credit: OrchardPeople.com.

One little footnote: Birds and wildlife are smarter than many of us give them credit for. So some of these methods might work for a few weeks, but when the birds figure out what's going on, they may return to plunder your growing fruit.

For lots more information, Cornell University has published a great article on bird management strategies that show the extent of the damage birds can cause and how to prevent it.

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