Pesky bird problem

[Ariel301]

I have encountered a new problem in my garden that I have not had before. I kept finding huge holes dug in various places that looked like someone had taken a shovel into my garden overnight and dug up some plants and stolen them! I was very confused for a while, then I caught the culprit. We have a bird getting in the garden and digging (I assume for bugs) everything up, sometimes pulling up plants and burying them in his leftover dirt heaps. It appears to be just one kind of bird, I don't know if it's the same individual all the time. It's a curve-billed thrasher, if anyone knows anything about them. He is literally rearranging my garden! He will dig a row down to the ground and throw the dirt everywhere. I'm losing a plant or two a day to him, and forget putting seeds right in the ground because he will dig them up and throw them everywhere or eat them. I have to scoop all the dirt back up into rows almost daily!

So, this needs to be stopped. I just feel bad about shooting the birds, especially if multiple birds are doing this and we'd have to keep killing them. I have cds hung around my fence to scare away chipmunks, but they are not working on the bird. Neither are fake rattlesnakes. Does anyone know any good tricks for keeping the birds from doing this? I can't really afford netting for covering the whole garden since it's huge.

 

[vfem]

Goodness! It sounds like what my chickens do when they get in! Grrrr....

I would so a cover up for the time being if you can... bird netting or something. After a couple weeks I am sure he'll have given up and moved on by then and you can uncover things. :/ Sorry about the mess!

 

[boggybranch]

I don't think there's but one solution. It's probably no more than one pair as thashers are not gregarious birds. I have a pair that hang around my place and raise every year (they're migratory birds, to a degree). So far....no problems. I leave lots of areas around the yard "natural" and they tend to stay around those areas and leave my garden alone.

 

[wifezilla]

Deer netting is $20/roll. You could probably cover the whole thing with one roll.

 

[Ariel301]

You think a roll would cover a quarter acre?

 

[beavis]

Curve-billed Thrashers are non-migratory and are found in AZ, NM and Western TX.

The Brown Thrashers in the SE United States are migratory.

With that in mind, you may have a year-round problem on your hand.

Could you put small pieces of barrier or netting over that plants or seeds until they grow big enough to fend for themselves?

 

[Ariel301]

Curve-billed Thrashers are non-migratory and are found in AZ, NM and Western TX.

The Brown Thrashers in the SE United States are migratory.

With that in mind, you may have a year-round problem on your hand.

Could you put small pieces of barrier or netting over that plants or seeds until they grow big enough to fend for themselves?

That's more or less what I am doing right now. I cut the bottoms out of plastic bottles and milk jugs to put over small plants and where there are seeds planted, and I use bits of netting in the worst spots, but those birds are smart. They seem to figure out how to make a huge mess anyway. Argh...I was celebrating not having issues this year with chipmunks destroying everything, and now it's birds!

If it's just one or two, I would not mind disposing of them. I just don't want it to get the way the rabbits are, where my husband has to shoot a dozen a day in summer to keep them from eating all the garden and the animals' feed.

 

[boggybranch]

Bummer...your thrashers aren't migratory. One word...Red Ryder.....uh, ok, two words.

 

[Ariel301]

Yeah, Boggybranch, that's probably going to be the way we go. Hopefully it's only a couple of birds doing it, and not a hundred!

I am having to shovel all the dirt back into three rows DAILY now. The chickens aren't even this destructive!

 

[Ladyhawke1]

I would say put the netting just over the problem areas. Netting has worked for me and I sometimes move it around a lot. It has even discouraged the chickens. At first it seems like you are all fingers with it but you get used to it. The birds see it far off and they stay away. Don't try to build the SUPERDOME.that is unless you want to.