July/August 2024
Feathered (un)friend: A Q&A with Bird Gard on reducing bird damage in tree nut crops
Some of the biggest wildlife threats to tree nut crops are birds. Several species can be highly detrimental to crops and even equipment used in production. Recently, National Nut Grower reached out to Ryan Norton and Quay Richerson from Bird Gard to obtain some tips to help mitigate or lessen aviary damage to tree nuts. Both provided the answers below.
Bird Gard, based in Sisters, Oregon, has over 30 years of experience in developing bird deterrents for more than 10,000 customers, which include enterprise clients through small hobby farmers.
Its solutions focus on utilizing sound, specifically bird distress and alarm calls, to scare the feathered (un) friendly friends and other wildlife, which is not a new strategy. However, there have been huge advancements in bioacoustics and pattern disruption with Bird Gard, Norton said.
What are the latest strategies for controlling bird damage/loss in tree nut crops?
Ryan Norton and Quay Richerson: Keeping birds off the farm has been an ongoing battle and damage can be devastating — eaten/pecked crop, damaged irrigation lines, droppings on the equipment, droppings in the harvest, increased sifting labor, spreading of disease (Salmonella, Listeria, E. Coli), and now: bird flu has been in the news.
Growers have been throwing the kitchen sink at trying to keep birds off their farms. There are pyrotechnics, reflective tape, propane cannons, squawk boxes, pesticide sprays, kites, netting, falconry and the latest modality, lasers. The most successful strategies to reduce crop loss contain audio and visual stimuli. Birds are not unlike humans: they hear, see, eat and want to survive. Therefore, creating an “element of fear” that affects either their auditory or visual senses re directs them to a food source where they can eat safely and survive.
Because birds are resilient and persistent, this “element of fear” must be continually active if the goal is to protect crops. The challenge for the manufacturers who specialize in these devices is to randomize their stimuli so the birds do not get use to (habituate) to it. An additional important note with controlling bird damage in crops is that some birds are extremely valuable. Some non-fruit eating birds help to reduce the negative impact of insects on fruit; therefore, it is critical that the deterrent you chose is species specific.
What are your tips to prevent bird damage?
Norton and Richerson: Unless you grow indoors, recognizing that no bird deterrent will get rid of 100% of the birds is imperative to understanding success. There will always be a contingent of braver birds than others or ones that will risk their lives to eat/drink.
This is a business of wild bird reduction, not mitigation — understanding this will help the grower recognize success and set realistic expectations. However, some modalities can be less effective and/or more costly than others.
In some high value crops or where bird damage is extreme, a multiple-pronged approach that triggers more than one of the birds’ senses can be more effective than using a single modality. Visual deterrents like lasers and kites can help but will push birds under the foliage canopy where the crop is.
A tip is to always incorporate an audible modality that penetrates below the crop canopy where visual stimuli can’t reach.
What are your thoughts on timing and implementation of control measures?
Norton and Richerson: The key to effective bird control is to not allow the birds to establish themselves in the area you are protecting. As such, it is important to have the deterrents in place PRIOR to the birds appearing.
Growers should also walk the area in the offseason and remove any nests that had been created in the spring. The deterrents used need to target approaching birds rather than a deterrent that tries to scare the birds once they have landed.
Deterrents vary depending on the damage that is occurring in the orchard. If nut loss is the concern, the deterrents need to be in place well before hull split. If irrigation line damage is the concern, the deterrents must be in place prior to the onset of irrigating. Monitoring irrigation damage is the most objective form of evaluating the efficacy of your deterrent.
What latest tech can help prevent damage in the groves?
Norton and Richerson: The biggest problem with deterrents is that birds get used to (habituate) everything over time unless the stimuli can be randomized. This is why you will see birds sitting on top of scarecrow: birds will habituate if the scarecrow doesn’t do anything different. This repeated pattern is true with most modalities. The latest innovations in deterrents are focused on increasing randomization, more realistic stimuli and species-specific deterrents.
Tell us how Bird Gard’s solutions help control damage.
Norton and Richerson: Bird Gard’s focus in the tree nut sector is with almond, pecan and pistachio crops. So far, birds don’t seem to be a major factor with the other nut crops. Over the years we have adapted from the issue of “nut loss” to “irrigation damage.”
Corvids — the crows, jays and magpies — are fond of poking holes in drip lines and pulling off risers, which has become a major cost issue for growers. Some larger acreages employ workers on ATVs who spend their entire day repairing irrigation lines. Bird Gard’s adaptation has been to incorporate additional speakers a few feet off the ground to deter any birds that may have approached underneath the tree canopy.
Our newest operating system (IntelliGard) includes 30 times more content, which is randomized and incorporated at differing lengths of time along with different time off intervals between each profile. As a result, the birds are unable to recognize a pattern and the randomized time off intervals creates an environment of shock and fear.
Customization on each farm is important as well. Our largest systems can cover as much as 15 to 20 acres each; however, topography, competing noise, the type of crop, age of trees, amount of foliage, etc., can all play into effective coverage areas. Every farm and every nuisance bird species are considered in order to optimize success. And our solutions come at a fraction of the price of lasers, netting and falconry.
The biggest questions we get are “does it work,” “will it actually increase yields” or “is it a good investment?”
Bird Gard is the only bird deterrent company to offer a one year satisfaction guarantee. For any reason, we will buy back the system at its full price for up to 12 months. We would not survive as a company in this industry for over 30 years with this policy if our systems didn’t work.
How can implementing bird protection solutions benefit growers in terms of yield and limiting losses?
Norton and Richerson: While increasing yields is the ultimate goal of nearly every supplier to a grower, there are so many variables that affect a specific yield from year to year. The efficacy of bird deterrents is quite subjective and varies from grower to grower, but it is incredibly satisfying when a customer says, “I reduced my irrigation repair costs by 80%” or “I used to see thousands of birds, now I only see 100 or so.”
Many of the growers and farmers are multi-generational and they inherently know when something they try is effective.
Do you have any additional advice for growers?
Norton and Richerson: Birds are wild animals and will stop at nothing to survive. The best advice I can give is to make the environment unfriendly enough that the birds want to feed or drink somewhere else.
Also, make sure your deterrent covers all parts of your blocks. Otherwise, birds will be pushed to and devastate the unprotected areas.
