
How to protect crops from birds: all suitable equipment
Coexistence can sometimes be difficult
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We love birds in our garden! They bring cheer and lightness; watching them chirp and flit from trees to bushes. But… we’d also appreciate it if they left our fruit and vegetables alone! Indeed, birds raid our cherry trees, devour our raspberries and gooseberries, peck at our strawberries, nibble our lettuce or vandalise our sowings. In short, coexistence can be tricky. How to live in harmony with birds in the garden? We explain everything in this advice guide.

Cherry trees are one of birds’ favourite targets
Let's protect our plants, our fruits and our vegetables!
First, we will protect our plants from birds. For this, you have several options :
- The anti-bird filament : it is a filament that you simply drape over plants to be protected. It is easy to drape a filament over a small bush such as a gooseberry, over a strawberry patch or a vegetable patch. But it is more complicated when it comes to a tree. In that case, you can place the filament only over the lowest branches and leave the top of your tree at the mercy of birds. Take care that birds do not get caught on the mesh or become trapped inside the filament! You can favour a blue filament as this colour seems to deter some birds.
- The protective tunnel : this solution is only possible on a small, flat area such as on a sowing line, for example.
- Fishing line : you can prevent birds from landing on your vegetable patch by making a small grid with fishing line. But you can more simply stretch lines parallel to each other and across your sowing lines. The important thing is that it becomes Mission Impossible for the bird to land at that spot.

Filaments are useful tools, provided they are installed correctly and do not trap birds
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How to protect fruit trees from birds?Scare birds away!
- Cat heads and raptor silhouettes: you can buy cat heads with sparkling eyes and even silhouettes representing raptors. Hang these either on your trees or on stakes placed in your vegetable garden. These two devices work very well… until birds figure the trick out. But at least they add a bit of decoration…
- Old CDs: shiny sides of CDs deter birds. Ideally stick two CDs back-to-back to have a shiny surface on both sides. Then attach this device with string and hang it from your tree. Expect about ten CDs per tree. Simply avoid La Compagnie Créole because it makes birds laugh! Also forget about nicking your teenager’s CD collection as they will shout a lot (but after all, that will scare birds away too!). To be serious again, remember to remove these CDs after your fruit harvest. Indeed, they can contain heavy metals that will gradually end up in the soil when decorative particles on the non-shiny side flake off.
- Aluminium foil: you can now buy ready-made aluminium deterrent vittae. But it’s even quicker and cheaper to cut thin vittae of aluminium foil and fold them like an accordion. Afterwards hang them on your bushes or your trees or on stakes stuck into the soil. Plan on 15–20 vittae per tree or about ten for a bush. Again, remember to remove aluminium after harvest because it’s waste (and aluminium production is far from ecological…).
- Scarecrows: they’re attractive and decorative! You can make them from branches, old clothes, terracotta pots, straw, a hat… they can be very original and add character to your vegetable garden. It’s an old, very eco-friendly method but sadly not the most effective.

The good old CD and scarecrow: simple tricks to use in garden and vegetable garden
Discover our video: “How to prevent birds from eating all our fruit?
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Make some noise!
There are sound cannons used in large-scale farming. They fire a blast at regular intervals to drive birds away. But unless you want to give your neighbour a heart attack, forget this device for your garden!
- Plastic bag : very thin plastic bags can make noise in the breeze. Environmentally questionable and you may find them in your neighbours’ gardens at the first gust. Use only as a last resort!
- Aluminium strips also make a bit of noise in the breeze (see above). In fact, you can attach to a stake in the vegetable patch or to your trees any device that will make noise in the breeze. The classic upside-down plastic bottle on a stick remains very effective.
- Radio: bringing a radio near the vegetable patch or under the trees you want to protect is a good idea. It’s up to you to choose the most frightening programme for the birds (P.S. – the programme “Les Grosses Têtes” is not suitable!). Otherwise you can always sing…

Plastic bottles on stakes and wind chimes work well to keep birds away
What if we hung up smelly things?
It’s a bad idea! Firstly, because the gardener will also be inconvenienced, but above all because they are generally very ineffective against birds. Indeed, depending on species, birds have a very poorly developed sense of smell (carnivorous and piscivorous species excepted). Yet in the literature one can find various outlandish ideas such as placing mothballs, cade oil or, more surprisingly, hanging kippered herring from trees in an attempt to keep birds away. You won’t deter starlings, blackbirds or other frugivorous birds with these devices. On the contrary, herring will almost certainly attract piscivorous birds: gulls and terns first (or perhaps even larger ones).
A quick "Nature" update
Remember birds absolutely have their place in your garden! Nature will gradually find its place there if you give it the chance and a natural balance will soon be established. Birds will peck at some fruits or sometimes disrupt your sowings, but after all, that’s what might be called “Nature’s share“. For professional producers it’s more complicated because fruits and vegetables are their livelihood. For gardeners, however, a few fewer lettuces or cherries isn’t so serious.
We are opposed to killing birds or other garden animals! That’s why we only mentioned deterrents, which will barely alter habits of birdlife. These are effective for a short period, just long enough for the harvest. After all, birds soon get used to anything.

Make birds allies rather than enemies: nest boxes and bird baths also add to garden decor!
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