One year I used a big long net, one bird got caught. A rat got caught too, but at a different plant. So that’s why I don’t cover the whole tree.
I abhor unnecessary killing and improper netting leads to that. Long story short if the grid is too small for you to run your finger through (1/2" is about ideal) it is unlikely to get a bird stuck.
As far as squirrel goes well that’s a whole different story. They are too smart for their own good and will chew through your nets. The only real solution is to turn the tables and no longer have a squirrel problem, let them have (and worry) about having a human problem. I have a .22 with CCI Quiet-22 rounds, the neighbor uses a pellet gun. Squirrels don’t come near our properties. As stated they are pretty darn smart and will avoid areas with known predators. Now I would walk outside and just see something across the property moving away at scape velocity.
I have vowed never to use bird nets again, after trapping 3 Western tanagers in one tree. They had been in the hot sun for hours by the time I discovered them–panting and their feathers a mess. It was the saddest thing–but at least they weren’t dead. But they have never come back here to nest again–and it’s probably been ten years. In another case, the net trapped two gopher snakes in a strawberry bed. I cannot begin to tell you what a nightmare it was extracting them. Finally–the last issue, the plastic is not recyclable and it is likely to be a long-term wildlife hazard regardless of what you do with it. So–don’t net it, you won’t regret it!
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This *hole got trapped in the net but that was by figuring out how to get into the bush and not knowing how to crawl back.
Me explaining to it that the net is there for a reason. 1/2" netting is less likely to get them stuck.
They go crazy for haskaps.
I am surprised birds can get into this small space/hole. They must figured way in and could not figure a way out in hurry🤔
Nah, poking and crawling under the netting.
Nowadays I weave cord through the edge of the net. Easier to lay down, easier to see if it is making full contact with the ground.
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I use ‘sod pins’ / landscape cloth pins…to hold the blueberry nets down usually.
It’s always damn robins
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I’m amazed at how good cat birds are at crawling under netting. They also peck my fruit including tomatoes.
That is interesting that you accidently caught some snakes. I have done exactly the same thing when I put bird nets over my blueberries and the nets sort of bunch up on the ground around the blueberries. Like you, I hated to find those dead snakes. But it got me thinking, and heari9ng your experience makes me think it even more…seems like it might be worth while to lay netting like this on the ground down in the florida keys where those pythons are absolutely taking over and destroying native wildlife and plants. I’m sure biologists smarter than me have considered this idea, but it seems like ai very inexpensive but effective technique based on me and you catching several this way by mistake! But perhaps it would also capture too many good guys. I’ve also had quail get caught in nets on the ground - twice.
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The biggest problem is that it would be a very inhumane way to go about it, leaving an animal to suffer a slow death like that. If killing animals is the best solution that’s fine but we need to be mindful about how we go at it.
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You are, of course, 100% right… In fact, the absolute honest truth is that both the snakes I found in my nets made me feel bad for them and I hated that it happened. How I went from that to suggesting we wholesale kill thousands of snakes using this method, I cannot say. But it wasn’t very smart! I guess like everyone else who has seen what is going on in the Keys with those pythons, I desperately wished we could do more to stop their invasion and destruction, but that shouldn’t involve an inhumane death and I should have thought about that!
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Hmmmm…while on this subject…is it humane to spray all the bugs on the apple trees and some of them writhe in the throes of death for minutes or hours (like the wicked supposedly are tormented in “The Inferno” by Dante.?
Or is it not cruel to spray cockroaches and the next day you find them upside down still kicking???
Just who decides which of the animals it’s OK to be cruel to?
And what makes snakes or kittens or birds ‘more special’ than other critters?
Actually I do my best to avoid cruelty to all critters, but do not hesitate to kill those that warrant to be killed. If whatever I’m using to spray cockroaches is not doing its job in a humane manner I would stop using it.
This year the darn currant sawfly larva is testing my resolve not to spray pesticides on my plants, I have never seen them this endemic! For better or worse this is how it goes around here; pests seem to take turns every year. Last year it was yellow jackets everywhere and they kept building nests as fast as I was knocking them down, this year I don’t think I have seen one.
I think the problems would also be it would not just kill the snakes but crocodiles and alligators would also get trapped. Here in Colorado we were shooting geese here and serving them to those who could not eat because the Goose population has gotten so out of control. It kind of killed two birds with one stone. There was a lot of protests about killing the geese and I think it stopped. I agree that killing birds, bugs and invasive snakes are not a problem per say. We all know that one wildlife person who you kill a pest and they look at you like you are a murderer though. I also think it is double sided because we are the ones who introduced them to Florida as well. We were the ones who thought pythons could make could pets even though they get big enough to swallow us whole. I have the same thoughts about Boa constrictors. Those people who bring boa constrictors places to show off think it is fine until they decide to turn on you.
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Pet stores sell them and irresponsible people release them.
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I bought some of those metal bird spikes that you have to assemble–carefully, because the V-shaped pieces can spring back out at you from the base like a mouse trap snapping shut and you could lose an eye–and put one single length of it, about a foot long, above a ripening fig in my tree.
Every fig had been disappearing just before ripeness and I had not had good luck with bird netting.
Not a one has been touched since anywhere on the tree. Go figure. I guess they figure those metal spikes mean business.
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Can you post pics, please?
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Thorns from citrus and plastic clamshells were what I tried before that, but they certainly didn’t stop the birds from going after what they could get to. The metal spikes, though, all the figs have been left alone since.
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