Or having sacrificial trees to distract him, like Mulberry?
1 Like
When I was a kid my dad did the sacrificial mulberry tree but really didn’t work. It attracted birds and also was a source of food for them when your crops weren’t ripe so they were around more.
1 Like
No, but it does attract more rodents.
3 Likes
Mulberries work great for me! Didn’t lose many cherries this year. The trick is growing more than they can consume.
2 Likes
Man I’m starting to hate birds. They are eating everything. They ate my cherries. Now They are working on blueberries and mulberries. I feel like sitting on a lawn chair with my pellet gun and plinking all evening long
4 Likes
Clark,
For those of us who don’t have a lot of space, the option of planting enough fruit trees to share with birds is not an option 
I try to feed them with bird feeds, those ungrateful brats still eat my fruit.
2 Likes
I doubt, but putting out suet feeders in winter and spring will attract carnivorous birds to your yard. Once they nest, in the spring, you withdraw the suet and replace them with bird baths. They will stay to hunt pest in the garden.
1 Like
The only thing that will stop birds are an ACTIVE yard dog and netting.
2 Likes
Bird seed won’t work because it does not get them the water they need. Frequently the eat your fruit because they are thirsty. Mulberries gives them everything they need and if you do have the room to plant a bunch it works every time. I picked the mulberries one year and they mass descended on my cherries! It was an unintentional test. I thought since many mulberries were on the ground they were open for sharing and they misunderstood and thought since I stole their mulberries they could eat my cherries! I was fuming but only at myself. Thankfully the next batch of mulberries ripened quickly. The mulberries have a long season so they protect many fruits but will not protect juneberries 100% .
1 Like
True. I have water fountains in my yard that attract birds yet rarely do they go after the fruit – although I do remove ripe fruit on a daily basis.
3 Likes
I let a mulberry tree grow near the garden as a ‘trap crop". It’s probably 30’ tall now and puts out thousands of fruits. There is a marked decline in the amount of bird damage I get once the mulberries start ripening.
I still have to put up bird netting though. Even in peak mulberry season I would lose too much to skip it.
2 Likes
I have mulberry trees and while they have fruit many species prefer them to other fruit, but they attract fruit eating birds who probably don’t lose their hankering when mulberry season is over.
Here pressure is highly variable season to season- If I have to, I use nets, but Richard has me thinking about trying a bird fountain. However, I’m doubtful- there is a reason commercial blueberry growers install timed cannons and if just some water was the solution I expect I’d have encountered this advice before, but who knows? Like a lot of things it may work some sites some years.
3 Likes
If you were to make a visible plate of seeds and water constantly available to the birds, in the most easily accessible location, would that likely stop them from most fruit picking? Or is it really just a roll of the dice, and some birds are going to prefer your fruit anyway?
As a side, I have a sacrificial mulberry tree at the edge of my orchard, but I’m surprised fully ripe fruit is hanging around on there a long time. It is getting eaten, just slowly and they dont seem to be in much of a hurry. I’m growing peaches, kiwi, grapes, and citrus, and so far there’s no bird damage.
Around my house however, I have blueberries and olives, and they’re constantly attacked by birds every day. I found this odd, as my orchard is in an agricultural area with a few people, but my house is not and has comparably a lot of traffic.
1 Like
You will get lots of rodents, incl. squirrels.
2 Likes
Olives??? I’ve never had an olive pecked by a bird, and I have tons of birds in my backyard, along with about 20 olive trees of different varieties. Are your trees real olives (Olivia europeana) or something like Autumn olive (Elaeagnus umbellata)?
2 Likes