Bird Scarers.

[melv16]

Speaking from experience, do CD's work as bird scarers?

[shoota]

Val Doonican ones do.

[MargoTester]

Why do you want to scare birds?

[bhg481]

Not for us. We tied loads to our cherry tree a few years ago in the hope that we'd get more cherries than the birds but it didn't work.

[melv16]

I want to keep pigeons off my soft fruit int allotment, Margo.

[shoota]

They can have a limited success initially, but they need to move in the breeze and flash with reflected sunlight to work well. The birds get used to them if they just hang limp.
An owl or eagle decoy might be more use.
(If you get some eagles they could play Hotel California...)

[Chipchopper]

Des O'Connor if others fail but they even get used to them after a while ;-)

[MargoTester]

Ah it's just that I saw sprigs of holly being used to cover grass seed on a lawn and thought it was a really good idea. Something I would never have thought of.

[woofgang]

my neighbours have got one of those bird of prey statues and the birds perch on it

[shoota]

Decoys that hang from a pole or branch and move are better than static ones. If static ones are used they should be moved about from time to time.

[alavahalf]

Melv .. we have tried everything that is cheap and cheerful. But in the end I got some 6ft long steel rods .. just 1/2" thick. Put 2 in the ground over the fruit and then got some blue poly pipe the type you use for mains water supply 25mm. Cut sections of pipe and forced them over the steel rods. We made a tunnel of these and then got some of this mesh.
https://tinyurl.com/yas87tkq
Once stretched over the frame we pegged it down with loads of tent pegs from the pound shop.
Four years on and we no longer loose all the fruit.

[melv16]

Chippy. Ive done that for the strawbs, goosegogs and currants. My problem is keeping the pigeons off the raspberries. They are over 6' high and impossible to net.
I've utilized a frame off an old polytunnel and used the polypipe method. Anyway, there's 20 CD'S in and around the rasps.
Thanks for the replies from you and other people and pray to the parsley gods for it to germinate:-)

[Togo]

I use similar stuff to protect my strawberries Alav(no sniggering at the back). I just dig a few canes around the plants as they begin to ripen and put a beer bottle over each cane so that the netting is supported. Coke cans will do the same thing. "She who must be obeyed" takes a dim view mind. The first time I did it we used some old net curtain that had been in the loft for about 20 years. I have to buy it now.

[alavahalf]

Shame on you melv.. if your rasberries are over six foot high, you never trimmed them back after xmas !
We have a new neighbour at the allotment.. he has a number of gooseberry bushes. Now nobody in their right mind will put their hand into a gooseberry bush as it has fierce thorns.
More or less every day last week we watched two wood pigeons carefully strip his bushes. One sat on guard, while the other raided the bush. Every now and then they would swap over, this went on every day. Not a single gooseberry has survived. The plot owner turned up yesterday and said someone has stolen his fruit, every last berry !
He doubted us when I explained, but I had warned him to net them if he wants fruit.

[melv16]

The CDs didn't work, so its back to the drawing board:-(