Birds and Brassicas

Here’s the first of the allotment holder bird-scarer tactics that I’ve seen on our site, and this is really impressive – not only is the Eagle Owl relatively accurately coloured, it’s life-sized, and by some means that I couldn’t elicit, its head turns from side to side. I’m not sure how long it keeps birds off brassicas, because presumably they work out, sooner or later, that the owl might look like an owl, but it doesn’t smell like an owl or fly like an owl, and I don’t know how much the batteries (I assume it’s batteries) cost to keep it running, but it’s quite compulsive to stand there and watch it, and as long as you do that, you’re scaring the birds for the plot-holder too!

Pea seedling update – 37 peas have germinated to date in the (unheated) greenhouse in toilet roll inners. 28 in the pre-soaked section, 9 in the unsoaked section … seems pretty conclusive to me!

Labels: alllotment-brassicas, allotment-bird-scarers, allotment-peas

Allotment Bird Scarers

Not the best photograph in the world, but you can see the problem. At this time of year, when food is scarce, the disgruntled allotment-holder finds him or herself fighting with birds.

Now the crow, bless him, is really not the problem. He turns up from time to time and will hop down ponderously to snaffle a bit of bacon sandwich, but really he’s not that interested in pecking our broad beans, that’s the pigeons.

And this is the scaraweb!

I ‘scored’ this off freecycle at the end of last year, and while it looks like a crash-landing by Santa, it does seem to be working – also, it’s biodegradable.

The problem with any bird scarer is that birds soon get used to it. You can try:




• Toy snakes (should be more than two feet long)
• Toy cats
• CDs on strings
• Bottles on canes
• Bunting
• Windmills
• Plastic shopping bags tied to string


But any and all of these only work because the birds are surprised and uncertain. As soon as they get used to the whatever-it-is then they’ll be back, pecking the tops out of beans and peas and taking the sprouts off Brussels. So what you have to do, apparently, is change your bird scarer system every couple of days so that there’s a constant novelty to the process. I assume this means that by the end of the week your resident birds will have forgotten what they saw on your plot at the beginning of the week, so they have a longer memory than goldfish, but not by much. Our fellow allotment-holders have a plethora of devices, so I’m going to photograph them and share them with you over the weeks ahead …

Labels: allotment-bird-scarers, allotment-birds, allotment-brassicas, allotment-broad-beans, allotment-pests