Guarding Fruit: Berry-Eating Birds And Bugs

There are several means you can use for guarding fruit berry plants and trees from nature. You'll have to devise an aggressive plan to keep your fruit berries safe from bird and bug infestation. These are some tips to keep your fruit for your solo enjoyment!

Which Species Eat Fruit?

If you are a bird watcher, then you may use this information to add fruit to your bird feeders. However, if you are growing fruit trees or berry bushes, you’ll want to know which birds are attracted to which types of fruit.

• Apples–There are at least 45 different bird species that will eat apples. Common varieties are flickers, house finches, robins, sparrows, thresh hermit, waxwing cedar, and the orange crowned warbler.

• Blueberries-Just as many humans love blueberries, so do many birds – 80 different varieties, in fact. These include, sparrows, kingbird, orioles, towhees, tufted titmice and robins.

• Cherries-This fruit is also very attractive to birds. Cardinals, mockingbird, robins, blackbirds, woodpeckers, orioles, catbirds and blue jays, among others, love cherries.

• Plums-This fruit is attractive to most of the species that love cherries, as well as rose breasted gosbeaks and the wood thrushes.

What Can You Do?

There are several methods you can try to keep birds from eating all the fruit you’re growing so carefully.

• Scarecrow – Use flashing tape or other items to create a scarecrow that will frighten birds away.

• Sparkling Disks – Hanging cds or pie plates in a strategic place may provide enough light and noise to deter birds.

• Berry Netting – Use netting draped over berry bushes and small fruits trees to keep the fruit away from birds. The mesh is small enough to keep most birds out.

• Faux Owls – These bird predators can sometimes scare is a method that sometimes works.

• Bird Bath and Bird Feeder –These items are on the list on the theory that if a bird is full and no longer thirsty, then it doesn’t want to eat as much fruit.

• Radio – Leave the radio tuned in, tuned up, and making noise. This will at least temporarily frighten birds away.

• Plant Extra – Perhaps the most effective way to deal with birds eating fruit is to accept that you will have losses, and plant enough to compensate for those losses.

Insects Require Additional Methods

Sow bugs, beetles, and many other kinds of insects also attack fruit and berries. In order to control thise pests, you can take either a natural approach or a chemical route to control.

It is possible to use a standard Sevin dusting powder and effectively control many of the fruit and berry eating insects. For a natural approach, try planting marigolds around the current plants, since they deter many insects.

Peppermint oil or peppermint shows can be effective as an insect deterrent also.