Birds are natural and wonderful guests to have visit our homes and gardens.
In fact, if we have birds regularly visiting our gardens, it’s fair to say we’ve done something right in their care.
While birds foraging on lawn is quite natural, they can become a pest when they develop a slightly unnatural fascination. With the result being that they dig into your lawn and make a real mess creating lots of holes.
Why do Birds Destroy Lawns?
The first inclination in protecting your lawn from bird destruction is to control the birds themselves, however the truth is that the birds are not causing the problem!
Basically birds digging in your lawn means they are looking for food, and your lawn therefore houses a large plate of delicious nutrients such as lawn weeds and pests.
However these weeds and pests will actually do more damage to your lawn than the birds and the birds are actually helping you control their population.
So if you do want to stop the birds from digging up your lawn you need to get rid of the problem – which is the presence of weeds and pests.
Weeds and Pests
Birds will naturally forage in lawns for either bugs, seeds or the bulbs of some weed types such as Onion Weed.
Therefore birds are actually friends to our lawns by reducing some weeds and lawn pests.
Generally speaking, birds in the Parrot family will most often dig for weed bulbs or corms, while Black and White birds such as Butcher Birds and Magpies will most often dig for lawn bugs.
Unwanted destructive bird behaviour begins when there are excessive numbers of pests on the lawn, and the birds go on a slight feeding frenzy with all the available food.
So as we can now see, the birds are not the problem, they are telling us there is a problem that needs to be dealt with in our lawns, and are already helping.
Dealing with the Cause of the Lawn Problem
Excessive bird behaviour has now indicated that you have a weed or a major pest problem with your lawn, and without directly dealing with the problem as quickly as possible – your lawn could suffer quite badly in a very short space of time.
If the problem is Onion Weed, then this can be easily dealt with by applying a herbicide.
However, if the problem is a lawn pest such as Army Worms, White Curl Grubs, Cutworms or Sod Webworms, you have a major issue to address and will likely need to apply a insecticide to control the outbreak.
Lawn pests can cause an enormous amount of damage and lawn death once they reach large numbers.
So, good lawn maintenance of your weed and pest problems is likely to keep any potential bird destruction at bay! Failing this, you may need to employ the services of a pest control company or look into other methods to bird-proof your home.
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$12–$18/m² 
