Damn birds!!!!!!!!

Okay, I'm beginning to hate the neighbors who live behind us. Not because they're unkind, but because of the birds. Ohhhh, the birds!!!

The people who live behind us have a lot of bird feeders. Seriously, like, seven. In subdivision-sized backyard. They attract the most awful birds; some kind of blueish black bird that looks like a crow, but smaller, and makes an awful "MAAAH" noise. Our neighbors were away for a month or so, and we'd be visited by a few robins, and teeny little brown birds. Despite the 'nest incident' a while back, I kind of enjoy having them around, and hearing them in the morning outside my window.

But I don't think the nice birdies will be back.

Our neighbors returned home a few days ago, and have obviously filled up their birdfeeders, because there are at least 30 of the nasty black birds out there, pecking in their grass, our grass, and the surrounding neighbors'. They're covering the trees, the roofs, and there are about 6 of them in our vegetable garden (incidentally, our neighbours put up three birdhouses about 4 feet away from our vegetable garden - nice). I went outside to cut some broccoli and nearly got dive-bombed by birds. I actually ducked.

I'm going to go insane. Every time I look out the window there are dozens of birds. But I've never even met the people who love back there; it's not exactly like I can go and ask them to use different bird seed.

Sigh. Does anyone have any suggestions for bird-proofing a vegetable garden?

8 comments:

  1. Where do you live? They might be blackbirds.

     
  2. I'm in Fredericton (and I obviously don't have much bird knowledge ;).

     
  3. They sound like grackles. I remember them from when we were in Fred'icton. For your veggie garden, you'll need to use some bird netting draped over stakes. Alternatively, Lee Valley has a motion activated sprinkler that is designed to scare away animals and birds. Each "alarm" uses less than a cup of water, so the city officials shouldn't get on your case.

     
  4. Scarecrow??

     
  5. A friend suggested a scarecrow too. Killing two birds with one stone, she called it.. ;)

    A bit unusual for the suburbs, but tempting... ;)

     
  6. Vicky - I looked up grackles on the Internet, and I think you're right! Thanks!

    The motion sensor sprinkler is really neat, but our garden is pretty small, so I'm not ready to shell out that much money...yet. ;) I'll have to look for bird netting at Scott's this weekend. Thanks for the ideas!

     
  7. Oh god! That is kind of disrespectful of your neighbors. Do you have bird poop everywhere too?

     
  8. Allie > yup, our lettuce had some lovely 'spots' on it (ewww). Thank goodness for power hoses!!