Tips for keeping birds off your lawn and away from your seed!

Just recently we have been asked a lot about keeping birds off your new lawns when seeding, they are hungry at this time of year and your seed is looking very appealing, they also quite like the freshly raked soil for their daily dust bath!  - Here are a couple of tips that may work:

• Make sure your seed is covered properly with a fine layer of soil, construction mix or topdressing mix.
• Put extra seed on to allow for the birds eating some.
• Provide other food for the birds e.g feed them out the back of your property if you are seeding out the front and Vice Versa.
• Cover the seed with a very fine netting that allows light and water to get through to the seed. This net can be removed once the grass has struck.
• Use a fake predator placed in the area around the lawn, use something like a hawk or an owl, move them on a regular basis.
• Use some reflective tape, or something similar that has a shiny surface, birds don’t like shiny, reflective lights. Drink bottles (e.g coke bottle) filled with water will also reflect in the sunlight and scare birds off.
• Noise deterrents like wind chimes are good too, birds don’t like noise so hanging something that makes noise near to your seeded area should scare them off.
• Last but, not least Pinwheels, things that move are also a deterrent, use them dotted around the lawn area and that should help keep them away.