The Birds: Gardening Hell

Did you ever see Alfred Hitchcock's movie The Birds? Scared the beejeebies out of me when I was a kid. Who would have thought sweet birds would be such a nightmare? It gave me a whole new appreciation for our feathered foes.

Birds are eating my garden! Sparrows and goldcrests, to be specific. They are really enjoying snacking on the little lettuce sprouts. It's so horrifying to helplessly watch my children being eaten just as they are sprouting to life! Gardening is not so entertaining any more!

Lettuce in foreground, half eaten!
Onions behind. Beets next. Carrots not up yet.

In the winter when the crimson clover cover crop was sprouting I noticed birds were eating it, too, but I assumed they were hungry. It was winter. And they are back. Damn freeloaders. ARGH! So frustrating.

I'm a bird-friendly gardener. I encourage birds because they eat bugs, especially mosquitoes, and where I live it is damp and humid during the summer. I do everything possible to discourage cats with all the chicken wire and deer netting on the fences. I don't feed the birds because it invites rats to move into my house, but I do provide bird baths.

It's delightful to watch birds bathe, flapping around in the water, and shaking off on a post. The blue jays squawk loudly when they bathe. Not sure why. It seems to me they are announcing to the cats what they are doing.

Maybe the birds are mad at me because I haven't cleaned this bath in the last week? I didn't think they were so picky. The camillias are a mess dropping into the water, but Peter eats them so I don't clean up regularly. Camillias are high in vitamin C.

They could go to the front yard and use this bath, recently cleaned and inviting.

I have bird houses all over the place for them to nest.

I have bird house trees!

Summer vacation homes.

And the whole yard is organic and healthy. You'd think they'd appreciate such a bird-friendly haven instead of getting greedy and taking advantage of the situation.

I spent the morning chasing birds out of the garden, throwing gravel at them as they mock me from the trees. In my pajamas, no less. I'm not normally a violent person, but I'm fantasizing about bb guns. Maybe I could rent a neighbor's violent, young son who I could let loose on my yard with a sling-shot or bb gun.  (It's a fantasy. In reality that would last about one second before I'd start begging for their birdy lives.)

Netting. Not a bird in sight! Yet...

Instead, I've taken the high road, be the non-violent gardener and do the organic thing...netting. I've used netting to keep Peter out of gardens, but I don't like it because the little birds often find their way under it, get stuck and I go out the next morning seeing feathers all over because the neighbor's cat had some fun.

The war has begun! Wish me luck!

Update:  Nasty little birds keep dive-bombing the netting...that's after I put little stakes around the edge so they couldn't crawl under it, which is what they were doing!!! ARGH!!!