Are birds pulling up your lawn?

Have birds been pulling up sections of your lawn? It's a problem many homeowners are facing and one where solutions are thin on the ground.

More and more, I hear stories of birds relentlessly ripping up lawns. They come back day after day and are not easily deterred by frustrated homeowners. The questions most people ask are, why are they doing it? And how do I stop them? While the reason they are doing it is straightforward enough, how to stop them is another matter. 

What type of birds are the culprits?

Birds can be made distinct by their diet. There are some common types, for example:

• Carnivores: These birds eat meat, including mammals, rodents, fish, etc. Birds in this group include raptors such as Eagles, Owls and Kookaburras. 
• Insectivores: As the name suggests, these birds primarily feed on insects. Birds include Swallows, Willy Wagtails and Murray Magpies.
• Granivores:  These birds eat seeds, plants and greens and include birds such as Galahs, Cockatoos and sparrows 

Most people think that if birds get stuck in their lawns, they are hunting down insects. While this may be true during the spring and summer, it’s most often not the case during winter. The most common types of birds that we see damaging lawns during winter are granivores, namely the ones mentioned above. It’s important to know this because it will influence how you deal with the problem. 

What are they doing on your lawn?

In simple terms, they're having a feed both for food sources in your lawn and on the lawn itself. Granivorous birds have a totally vegetarian diet. They live off seeds and other vegetable matter and, by their curious nature, have discovered that lawns contain valuable food sources. Winter is a time when there is typically less food around than at other times of the year, and to adapt, some species of birds have become quite creative in their quest for dinner.  Birds such as sparrows dig around, looking for seeds in the thatch of the lawn. When in large numbers, they can cause a bit of a mess by scratching out dead-looking thatch that hangs around on the surface. Other birds, such as Galahs, Corellas and Cockatoos, are actually eating the lawn itself!  They have a penchant for lawns such as Kikuyu, and it’s not the blades of grass they are after or even the surface runners but the rhizomes (or underground runners) that lie beneath the surface. To get to them, they use their claws and strong beaks to dig below the surface of your lawn, pulling up chunks in the process. You’ll often see an array of lawn runners lying on the surface when they have finished. Kikuyu rhizomes are thick, white runners with small nodes every 2-3 cm. The birds bite into these runners to release the sugary starch that exists within them. They are essentially eating your lawn and loving every minute of it. Because of their intelligent and curious nature, once they've found that they like your lawn, you'll find the same birds coming back year after year.

Can they cause significant damage?

This problem is becoming more common as bird populations increase. With less food around during Winter to support them, they are forced to look for alternative food sources. Most people who report damage from these birds are concerned about the aesthetic side of the problem, and this is understandable - they do make quite a mess. Because kikuyu is dormant in Winter, it is more susceptible to damage such as this and won't repair itself until the weather warms up. In this way, the damage that they cause is more superficial and cosmetic than anything else, and in most cases, being a particularly resilient lawn, kikuyu will recover in the Spring. In exceptional cases, where large numbers of birds relentlessly feed on your lawn, day on day, complete defoliation can occur, which will be unsightly. Even in these situations, there will most likely be enough kikuyu seed, rhizomes and stolons left in the soil for the lawn to regenerate.

What can you do?

The answer for homeowners lies in creative ways of preventing them from landing on your lawn.  We've been running this blog during Winter for a few years now and have heard from people trying many different approaches, such as bird deterrents and bird scarers. We’ve even heard of people going to the lengths of putting out bowls of seed to provide them with an alternative food source instead of eating their lawn. Have a read of the comments below for some ideas to try.  Thankfully, it is unlikely that they will kill your lawn, so in that sense, the problem is temporary, albeit annual. 

So far, here's some of the feedback: 

• Use a bird deterrent called D-Ter. D-Ter is a natural approach to, as the name suggests, deterring birds. It's an aluminium-based product that you mix up and spray on, which makes the lawn taste bitter to the birds. D-Ter is safe for use on lawns and is perfectly suited for homes with pets due to its non-toxic nature. 

• Tracey: Last year our Kikuyu lawn was decimated by galahs. Back in March, we installed a motion-activated impact sprinkler, and it’s working really well. Ended up buying 2 to get coverage, and we move them every week or so. The brand we bought is Sureguard. https://www.sureguard.com.au/shop/product/scarecrow-motion-activated-sprinkler-repellent-1414

• Bill: I had a daily visit from galahs destroying my newly installed lawn. I used fertiliser granules, which slowed them down but didn't stop them. I searched the internet and found a solar animal, Away Elite, by Pestrol, for $160.00. It works great, and there are no more bird attacks. Also, in our area, there is a rabbit problem, and they are no longer a problem.

• Paul: It hasn’t been too bad this year, but in the past, they have been a nuisance until we bought one of those big plastic owls from Bunnings and put it on the front lawn near where they liked to congregate. It worked a treat.

If you've tried something that works, leave a comment below so others can learn from your successes.