How Do I Stop Birds Eating My Blackberries?

Blackbirds, starlings, thrushes and pigeons all target ripe blackberries and can strip a crop in hours — often removing the fruit just before it reaches perfect ripeness for picking. Wild blackberries in hedgerows exist in such quantity that bird damage is rarely noticed, but on a single garden plant producing a limited crop, bird predation can be significant. Physical exclusion is the only fully reliable protection — deterrents have limited effectiveness once birds have learned where the food source is.

Fitting netting effectively

Drape a fine fruit netting (2 cm mesh or smaller) over the plant when the first berries start to colour. Secure the edges to the ground or to the support structure so birds cannot get under the netting. Proprietary fruit cage netting stretched between canes and posts works well for blackberries trained on a fence or post-and-wire system. Check the netting regularly — birds that find a gap will enter and then panic, becoming entangled. Any entangled birds should be released promptly.

Harvesting ahead of birds

Regular harvesting — picking ripe fruit every day or two during the main harvest period — removes the crop before birds have an opportunity to take it. Fully ripe, soft blackberries are most attractive to birds. Picking at the moment of ripeness rather than leaving berries to accumulate on the plant reduces the window of bird predation significantly. On a small plant, this approach alone can be sufficient if bird pressure is moderate.

Deterrents

Reflective bird deterrent tape, CD discs hung in the plant, and fake predator silhouettes all have limited effectiveness — birds in most urban and suburban gardens quickly habituate to visual deterrents. In a very large planting where netting is impractical, these deterrents can reduce damage but should not be relied upon as the sole protection on a single valued plant.