Birds as Garden Pest Prevention

Table of Contents:

What Ecosystem Niche Do Birds Fill?
How Are Birds an Important Piece of the Garden Ecosystem?
What Problems Can Birds Cause in the Garden?
Entice More Birds to Help With Garden Pest Prevention

To many gardeners, birds in the garden are only seen as an annoying nuisance.

They steal your fruit and eat your tomatoes, and make you have to put that dang bird netting over anything that's close to ripe.

But this underestimates the important role that birds play in the garden ecosystem!

Let's learn to see birds as garden pest prevention.

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bird eating worm orange grey brown white rocks and grass

What Ecosystem Niche Do Birds Fill?

How Are Birds an Important Piece of the Garden Ecosystem?

If your tomatoes have hornworm problems, birds are an integral ally for keeping their populations in check.

Grasshoppers are also a favorite food for birds in the garden. We get tons of grasshoppers in the desert some years during monsoon, and we need all the bird help we can get to keep them somewhat under control!

grasshopper green and yellow in garden on black plastic fence

What Problems Can Birds Cause in the Garden?

Though they are an important part of your garden ecosystem, birds are not without their problems. They absolutely will steal your tomatoes and strawberries, for instance!

Remember, though, that birds are seed-spreaders. By consuming some of your garden fruit and helping its seed to spread, they are often making future investments in your garden on your behalf.

When birds eat fruit, more fruit grows from the seeds. When you eat fruit, those seeds die in your septic tank or city sewage. That means your plants really benefit more from being eaten by birds than by you, so try to learn how to share!

Allowing birds some of your fruit without clinging to all of it will often yield larger returns in future years from all the seeds they've moved around.

Bonus points if some seeds find areas of your garden where they grow better than where you originally planted them! Vigorous volunteer plants are one of the greatest surprises of gardening.

Entice More Birds to Help With Garden Pest Prevention

Put out a bird bath or water dish. Birds will love coming to get a drink and cooling down, and might even snag a few pests from your garden while they're there.

Give them sheltered places to hide. Hedgerows and shrubs can provide wonderful cover and nesting area for birds nearby to your gardens.

Shrubs and hedges around garden and farm perimeters are an often-overlooked yet integral components of a balanced organic ecosystem.