The problem with Common Blackbirds
One of my readers posed this perplexing problem with Common Blackbirds:
Helppppp!!We have a Huggggggge problem with Blackbirds in our garden, flicking our mulch all over the place, it’s driving us crazy, do you know where we could get one of those electronic things to scare them off, or anything else that would work in getting rid of them??
Regards
Mary.
This is a common problem in many gardens.
Unfortunately, as far as I know, there is no simple, easy solution. Most gardeners tolerate this behaviour because they love to hear the beautiful song of the Blackbird during the breeding season.
Electronic device:
Mary asks about an electronic device to scare them away. I do not know of any but I suggest asking at the local hardware stores and garden centres. A long search of the internet turned up one very expensive (about $50US) device in a store in Kansas. The downside of this device is that it does not discriminate; it scares ALL birds, including the native birds that keep the natural balance of nature in the garden. Without the native birds eating the insects like mosquitoes, flies, beetles, centipedes, spiders and so on, our gardens would become an ecological disaster area. It would be a far greater problem than the nuisance caused by the Blackbirds.
Other alternatives:
Here we need to get a little creative. I’m not sure whether any of these ideas will work because I haven’t tried them. Some may even look a little ugly.
- Get rid of the mulch - with water restrictions this may not be desirable or possible.
- Replace the bark mulch with gravel or pebbles too heavy for the birds to move - an expensive solution.
- Build 20cm high walls along the edges of the garden so that the Blackbirds do not flick the mulch on to the path. These could be made of stone, brick, pavers, wooden sleepers, pine posts on their edges and so on. Be creative.
- Cover the mulch with chicken wire, shade-cloth or weed mat. Probably not a good look.
- Turn around your attitude and learn to love the birds; after all, they are just looking for lunch.
I guess these suggestions may not please Mary and may just add to her frustrations. Sorry, Mary.
Reader questions:
Over to my readers:
- Do you have any suggestions for Mary? (Please be nice - offensive comments will not be published).
- How have you solved this dilemma in your garden?
- Reply in the comments section below or via the email contact form.
- Comments via email may be added below if they add to the conversation and provide a solution.
Common Blackbird (male)
UPDATE: I also posed this question to subscribers of the Birding-Aus forum. Many of their comments are recorded in the comments section below. I love the one about leaving plastic snakes lying around!
Blog Entries
August 21st, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Cover the mulch with chickwire or plastic mesh, staked well down. Alternatively, make a fence round the edge of the garden beds with six-inch high mesh. We found that left-over lengths of gutter-guard mesh worked quite well, and looked neat(Suggested by ABC Garden Show). It will fall over in a year or two but then you fix it again. You can support it with wire tent-pegs.
Otherwise, you have to accept that searching for food items in mulch or leaf litter is what Blackbirds do. If you provide a well dug-over patch they will like that too. Remember that they work on insect and pest controls for about 14 hours a day, and eat a lot of small snails.
Meanwhile, enjoy their song.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:42 pm
I have to admit to having harboured less than charitable (aka ‘murderous’) thoughts towards blackbirds myself in the past. Presently, I don’t have many areas they attack, but I know may people who edge their garden beds with a wall/boundary of gutter-mesh part buried (upright) so the top edge is about 10cm above the level of the mulch. Doesn’t stop them digging and flicking, but does seem to stop the mulch spreading far and wide.
August 21st, 2007 at 8:43 pm
P.S. Given my past experience with them (where everything new added to my garden was soon dug out), I don’t know that I will ever grow to ‘love’ blackbirds!
August 21st, 2007 at 9:15 pm
I learnt quite quickly that you don’t use shredded paper under mulch if you have blackbirds around. Sure, it worked well in North Queensland but in Melbourne … Well, it was only a matter of days before the garden looked like a ticker-tape parade.
Not a helpful comment, I know … but a heartfelt one. I’m just thankful I don’t have brush turkeys!
August 21st, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Thanks for the constructive comments Anthea and John.
Yes they can be a pest for those who want a neat tidy garden. Fortunately our “garden” merges so well with the surrounding mallee scrub we don’t even notice this habit of the Blackbirds.
Snail - Brush Turkeys in the garden? Now there’s a thought. I’ll just settle for a Malleefowl or two - after all, the nearest population is only about 15km away.
August 21st, 2007 at 10:09 pm
My neighbours have put plastic snakes on the adjacent pathways. It spooked me and they say it works on the blackbirds too!
August 21st, 2007 at 10:12 pm
Excellent suggestion Dorothy.
Now all they have to do is worry about the Kookaburras coming down to “kill” the snakes!
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:08 am
Hi Trevor
It’s a huge problem. 100 years after the first settlement of Europeans around here, that great bird observer Barbara Salter suggested that Blackbirds were the main cause of the disappearance of orchids.
Blackbirds turn over soil at a huge rate per annum (I know the figure is out there but haven’t found it).
Solutions? Cats, dogs… It depends on what you want to keep and what you do not mind being hurt. It’s been like that for 150 years.
Michael
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:09 am
This comment came to me via email:
Years ago we bought a house in Albury which had a large garden full of Blackbirds, they were all over the place. The vendors didn’t have a cat, but we did. Within weeks of moving in the Blackbirds had virtually disappeared from that garden. We now live in Mulgoa, have no cat, but the neighbours introduce one from time to time, and the number of Blackbirds seems inversely related to the presence of cats. It was salutory lesson; cats and birds don’t mix.
Cheers
Michael
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:11 am
This comment came to me via email:
You know, I’m thinking that “get a cat and let it roam unfettered around the yard” probably isn’t the ecologically responsible solution that Trevor’s contact is after.
Bill
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:30 am
Thanks to Tony for this comments via Birding-Aus:
No solution Trevor, but I reckon everybody with Blackbirds has the same problem, I know I have. Short of having a garden with no movable surface materials ( or culling the birds) I don’t think there’s much you can do.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:31 am
Thanks to Chris for this comment via email and to Birding-Aus:
Hi Trevor,
It was related to me recently that Red Wattlebirds give Blackbirds a very hard time, to the point of driving them away. Perhaps by attracting Wattlebirds and Miners (not Mynahs) you could create a situation where native birds are driving the blackbirds away. Of course they won’t discriminate so you’ll lose any small birds you have as well.
Regards,
Chris
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thanks to Margaret who sent this comment via email and on Birding-Aus:
When I lived in Geelong (Victoria) there were lots of Blackbirds. I had a small garden which had 4 nesting pairs which hatched young every year (sometimes more than once - I didn’t keep track). They often built nests in extremely dopey places - for example in a vine on a fence where my cat could see into it on her daily parade around the top of the fence. Yes I had a cat which did catch Blackbirds over the 10+ years we lived there - one adult male and a couple of babies just out of the nest. The dead babies I found had mostly killed themselves in stupid or tragic ways - like trying to walk out under the front gate, getting stuck, and dying there. I did not find the cat was a Blackbird deterrent, I just swept up the mulch now and again.
Liz Kerr kept the Blackbirds off some of her garden beds with a kind of plastic netting which I assume she bought at a garden shop. It was dark green so was not offensively visible. It was no good on beds she wanted to plant things in or work in frequently (she had many bulbs) but OK on beds that had shrubs surrounded by lots of thick mulch.
Margaret
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:37 am
Tony added this further comment:
This doesn’t work at my place. I’ve got Blackbirds, Red Wattlebirds, Little Wattlebirds( or whatever they are called now in SA), House Sparrows, at least two Magpie families, Spotted Turtle-Doves, Aust and Little Ravens, GSTs, plus a range of honeyeaters, Pardalotes, etc, etc., and, unfortunately the occasional Noisy Miner ( aggressive monsters that they are), and they all seem to stay in this location - albeit with a fairly clear pecking order. The Blackbirds are pretty quick on their feet when the Magpies or Ravens give them a chase, but they just wait ’til the bigger birds have gone.
Tony.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Michael made this comment on the Birding-Aus forum:
I have just opened a catalogue from “Health pride” (www.healthpride.com.au)advertising a “holographic magnetic bird barrier” which is claimed to “deter birds within a 6m radius, by disrupting the magnetic field and redirecting bird’s navigation” all for $9.90.
Michael
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Bill followed up the previous comment with this:
My scepticism alarm just went off.
Can’t understand why…
Bill
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Penny added this comment on the Birding- Aus forum:
And what about people with gardens infested with Brush Turkeys, or Lyrebirds and bandicoots - I remembers some years ago a woman living on the edge of Jervis Bay National Park saying the NPWS rangers should cull the bandicoots as they kept digging up her carefully planted rock plants.
Yes, learn to live with them - they are better to have around than cats.
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Graham emailed this comment:
I’ve got both a cat and wattlebirds (two types) plus miners and I still have blackbirds, so I don’t think either of these are going to work.
The best method I’ve found is to find the blackbirds nest and deal with it.
Cheers
Graham
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Phillip left this comment on the Birding-Aus forum:
Two cures to Blackbirds damaging gardens:
1> Prune the shrubs around their nest to help the Pied Currawongs find and eat the babies. Doesn’t stop the behaviour but reduces the number of Blackbirds.
2> Live near where the Australian Brush-turkeys are mound building. That probably won’t reduce the problem of Blackbirds. However it will give you a similar problem on a much bigger scale, thereby taking your mind off the Blackbirds.
Philip
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Kurtis left this comment on the Birding-Aus forum:
I think the woman and her plants should be culled, not the Bandicoots!
While on the topic I believe Long-nosed Bandicoots have came along way over the past 200 years. The poor creatures have endured conflict with humans on and off throughout this time.
It was common in the 1940’s & 1950’s for gardeners along the East Coast (especially Sydney) to ‘gas’ or ’smoke-out’ the poor bandicoots from their homes, where they would be killed. This was only because they were thought to cause damage to lawns and garden beds - the poor animals were only doing what came natural! Bandicoots don’t cause half as much damage to lawns as European Rabbits do!
Not long after their persecution for destroying gardens, came their persecution (and execution) for apparently harbouring “deadly” ticks (any sort of tick bite was believed to have caused Lyme’s disease at this time). Sure bandicoots may have carried a few ticks but no more than any other animals (namely foxes and cats).
“…some people associate bandicoots with ticks, this may be because humans tend to pick up ticks most easily in long grass or thick scrub – which also happens to be the type of habitat favoured by bandicoots.” - NSW NPWS
Other threats to these innocent Australian icons over time have been the introduction of cats, dogs, pigs and rabbits. While the main two impacts on bandicoots has been the introduction and proliferation of foxes and the clearing of natural habitat.
Long-nosed Bandicoots now have a restricted range in city areas like Sydney, however as a result of increased awareness of the bandicoots plight, the baiting of foxes and maintenance of bushland, Bandicoots are making a comeback, and I am all for them.
Kurtis
August 23rd, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Another good suggestion, also from Kurtis:
A realistic solution is SCAT produced by Multicrop.
It is chemical specifically designed to repel birds and it is an affordable, non-toxic chemical which is sprayed or scattered around the garden and stops birds altogether, I have used it on my garden beds and seen results (it also repels dogs and cats from sensitive areas)
http://www.multicrop.com.au/animal.htm
Kurtis
October 6th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
The problem for me is the song of the blackbird - I find it excrutitingly annoying
October 6th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Hi there Shane. Most people find the song of the Blackbird to be its only redeeming feature, especially considering its habit of scratching mulch out of garden beds on to the paths in the garden. I personally find the song to be beautiful - until it goes on and on and on - then it can get a little wearisome.
November 13th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I love baby black birds, if anyone wanting to get rid of black birds nest, I can have the babies.
February 3rd, 2008 at 6:33 pm
I found this site to help the “mulch over the path problem” caused by the Blackbirds. The snakes work to an extent. I am training my borber collies to chase them. They do on command but not when I am around. One pair built a nest in the passion fruit vine under my daughter’s bedroom window. The young birds were raised, flew the coup, then the bird lice marched up the vine in the window and found my daughter. This is another good reason to rid them from the yard.
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Indeed it is Bruce. Not good news about your daughter. How did you solve that problem? Common Starlings are even worse for spreading lice in a house I believe.
February 4th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
We sprayed the nest, vine, fly screen and window sills, wall etc with fly spray, washed the sheets and vacuumed the room. Problem with the lice solved, but not the blackbird problem.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Thanks for that Bruce.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:27 am
I have a large, mulched garden full of native plants. Blackbirds have, until recently, turned my garden into a moonscape with me filling in 80 - 100 holes per day. Following on the plastic snakes idea, I went to the local junk shop and bought a five dollar bag of mixed rubber reptiles. This included a pink iguana, an orange crocodile and a bright red snake with green spots. For 3 days, NO birds entered the garden. Now, the only birds missing are the starlings, the indian mynahs and (until yesterday) the blackbirds; they attacked an area with no roaming rubber reptiles, (and only 2 holes). Five bucks and a trip to the junk shop should fix that. Move them around occasionally and the birds seem to think they’re real. Fingers crossed it keeps working.
Jim
May 1st, 2008 at 8:28 am
Thanks Jim. This seems to be a very cost effective method of dealing with this pest. I hope it continues to work for you. It certainly must add some colour to your garden. Pink iguana - yikes - that’s enough to scare anything.
Congratulations on having native plants in your garden - you might like to have a look at my wife’s blog:
http://www.malleenativeplants.com.au/
May 10th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I was surfing to look for solutions to crows digging holes and uprooting new plants in my garden and came across this site. I have tried hanging silver tins and other silver twirling items around but the birds just ignored them. Will try the plastic snakes and pink iguanas. Thanks for the tips.