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How do orchards cope with birds?

robatworkukrobatworkuk Posts: 16
in Problem solving
Probably another in a line of dumb questions...

Short version - how do orchards (or you) keep birds from eating your fruit?

Longer version - we have a couple of cherry trees - sweet and bitter. They produced hundreds of fruit this season, but never got ripe because they have all been eaten. Every one.  I think it was pigeons as so many branches are broken. How do people ever get any fruit from their garden trees?

As an aside, when younger we had several fruit trees - plums, cherries etc. and I remember eating ripe fruit direct from the tree. Were pigeons less like aerial goats then, as I don't recall any measures taken to protect the trees.

Posts

  • bertrand-mabelbertrand-mabel Posts: 2,697
    Our small orchard has pigeons in early spring eating the new leaves of the plums, cherries and gages. They don't touch the pears or apples.
    The trees though do make a come back.
    Then the blackbirds (like you) take all the cherries while they are still green. They don't though touch the morello cherry. A neighbour has a huge cherry that each year is covered in red fruit so much that they don't mind the birds taking some.
    The magpies come later in the seasoin and land on the apple trees and peck at one apple and then move to the next, even though there are fallen apples on the ground.
    When the trees were smaller we did try netting but a lot of hard work. Then we tried tying strips of bonded fibre onto branches so that they would move in the wind. Birds took no notice.
    Last resort was putting up old CDs to shine and move. Again the birds took no notice.
    Commercial growers do use bird bangs but that can't keep them away all day. Having a huge fruit cage would be great but a such a cost.
  • JohnjoeJohnjoe Posts: 77
    My Gran would hang a dead crow from every fruit tree,seemed to work for her, though it was quite macabre to me as a child......also kept us kids away too!
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    A friend who lives a few doors away uses the big orange onion sacks to cover branches the are laden with cherries.
    It's a lot of faff, but does give some protection even if it does look a bit weird.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • rowlandscastle444rowlandscastle444 Posts: 2,612
    We used to have a cherry tree, with apple, plum and pear. The cherry tree always attracted the birds, but I think the neighbour's cat used to help out. 

    There does seem to be an increase in the pigeon and magpie population, and they do much of the damage here. 

    Basically, we do nothing, and accept that fruit trees WILL suffer losses. This year seems to have been particularly bad for pigeon damage on fruit bushes, so I expect the trees to suffer also. 

    I dislike the use of netting, and cages are costly. If I could persuade my wife, or anyone else, to regularly walk down the garden, birds would spend less time on the fruit. But, it's not practical.
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I don't know if it would work for fruit trees, but I grow lots of soft fruits and use old or blank CDs to keep the birds away.
    It really works very well.
    I have summer raspberries, autumn raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. None of them are netted and afaik I don't lose any to the birds.

    Hanging a few CD's around the area when the berries start to ripen keeps all the birds away. I miss seeing the birds (pigeons excepted!) so I remove the CD's after harvest.
    The key is to hang the CD by a single length of string and not a loop of string.
    This allows the CD to twirl in the breeze. I hang them in pairs a few feet apart so they sort of look like a huge pair of flashing eyes.
    Try hanging some from branches where they are free to twirl around and not get blown into or caught by other nearby branches when the wind blows.
    I've used this method for about 5 years now and it works a treat.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
  • bédébédé Posts: 3,095
    edited July 2023
    Pete.8 said:The key is to hang the CD by a single length of string and not a loop of string.  This allows the CD to twirl in the breeze.
    Now that's a good idea.
     location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand.
    "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
  • LiriodendronLiriodendron Posts: 8,328
    I think whether hanging CDs works or not may depend partly on how windy your garden is.  I used them, hung by a single string from the apple trees to try to deter bullfinches from pecking some of the fruit buds, but the wind lifted the CDs and tangled them around each other and/or the branches from which they were hanging.

    I wonder whether commercial orchards just grow so many trees that they can ignore bird attacks on a proportion of the fruit?  
    Since 2019 I've lived in east Clare, in the west of Ireland.
  • SkandiSkandi Posts: 1,723
    Pete.8 said:
    A friend who lives a few doors away uses the big orange onion sacks to cover branches the are laden with cherries.
    It's a lot of faff, but does give some protection even if it does look a bit weird.

    This is what I do. Can't cover the entire tree but you can save the best branches.
  • rowlandscastle444rowlandscastle444 Posts: 2,612
    Pete.8 said:
    I don't know if it would work for fruit trees, but I grow lots of soft fruits and use old or blank CDs to keep the birds away.
    It really works very well.
    I have summer raspberries, autumn raspberries, blackcurrants, strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. None of them are netted and afaik I don't lose any to the birds.

    Hanging a few CD's around the area when the berries start to ripen keeps all the birds away. I miss seeing the birds (pigeons excepted!) so I remove the CD's after harvest.
    The key is to hang the CD by a single length of string and not a loop of string.
    This allows the CD to twirl in the breeze. I hang them in pairs a few feet apart so they sort of look like a huge pair of flashing eyes.
    Try hanging some from branches where they are free to twirl around and not get blown into or caught by other nearby branches when the wind blows.
    I've used this method for about 5 years now and it works a treat.
    I've been using string that is looped - but for fruit bushes only. Certainly didn't deter the pigeons here. At least, not this year!!
  • Pete.8Pete.8 Posts: 11,340
    I found the same using a loop of string, it doesn't work very well as they can't spin, they just move around in the breeze - that's why I now use a single bit of string - that means they spin in the slightest breeze which makes them flash even when there's no sun.

    Billericay - Essex

    Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
    Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
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