How Does a Bird Know If Its Fake and Plastic
How Smart Are Birds When It Comes To Plastic Predators
Plastic Snake in Action
For everyone who has had a look at this site you’ll realize that there is a popular theme in creating bird scaring products.
That is make something out of plastic, that looks like a typical bird predator.
Plastic snakes, plastic owls, and plastic hawks are an example.
There are also hybrids, like the bird balloon. Which uses the shape of a predators eye to keep the pests at bay.
Plastic predators are great for us because they are typically no maintenance and they don’t cause any problems of their own (apart from maybe aesthetic problems). Plastic predators have been used for a long time, then just the shape of the predator was used to scare away birds who have over the generations grown smarter about their surroundings.
Just for this post were not interested in talking about which works best.
But what about the question, how does a bird tell if something is fake?
The simple answer is that they have time. They will sit, wait and watch.
When after a while they don’t see anything move they will move closer.
The faker the scarer looks, the quicker they will come in.
This shouldn’t put you off these techniques though because they can work.
It is suggested that you move your plastic scarer often as you can reasonably, so the birds are kept guessing.
Also, if you can use more than one technique at a time. Like a plastic snake and an auditory noise for instance.
Hope this helps your gardening, and if you have any questions regarding scaring birds from your property, or would like something in particular covered, please email me using the contact page.
Thanks for reading!
