4 Ways to Prevent Wild Birds Nesting on Your House
Birds hanging around your house might seem innocent at first. Perhaps you hear them chirping early in the morning, and you see them roosting during the day. It can seem like a cheerful thing when the weather is nice and we are reaching the spring and summer months. However, you have to be very careful. If wild birds like your house too much, they are going to build a nest. When this happens, you can experience a host of problems.
Ultimately, you want to prevent wild birds from nesting on your house to begin with. Here are four simple ways you can do this that will not harm the birds.
Install Anti-Bird Netting
First, let’s start with one of the most common and successful ways to prevent birds from nesting. We are referring to anti-bird netting. Just as the name suggests, this is a solution that uses highly durable and strong netting to block areas of your home—for example, birds like roof areas and places with high ledges. So, a netting system is installed to create a barrier around these spots. Then, the birds are unable to access them. Thus, no nest can be built.
Anti-bird netting is simple yet effective. The best way to have this installed is by expert bird control companies. This ensures that high-quality materials are used, which is essential to the success of this system. For example, Apex Bird Control has the expertise to safely and securely install netting on your home. They can identify the areas where this will be useful, and they use the best quality materials for the job. This results in no nests for you to worry about.
Clean Up Food Sources
Something to realise is that birds will choose a place to roost and build a nest based on a few factors. Namely, they are looking for somewhere that is going to be safe from predators, as well as a place that has access to water and food. You have to ensure that you are not encouraging birds to choose your property for roosting and nesting. For example, if there is food available at your home, this is going to be something that attracts birds.
Therefore, you need to make sure that birds cannot get food in the first place. This means not leaving trash lying around and accessible. If you are leaving food out specifically for animals or birds, this is going to be something you want to stop doing. You could be actively encouraging them to stick around. So, if you are worried about nesting, remove any bird seeds you have and anything that acts as a food source.
Choose a Spike System
Birds are known to sit on windowsills, as well as other high-up ledges on houses. They like these areas since they are often sheltered from the elements, as well as out of reach from predators. They can get a view around them, including the nearby food and water sources. Unfortunately, if you do not move birds on quickly, they will make a nest, and this means they will stay for the whole nesting season. Indeed, this can lead to a mess, a lot of noise and disruption at your home.
If you notice that birds are sitting on windowsills and ledges, you need to block these areas. In particular, you can use a spike system, which is going to be installed on ledges and act as a barrier. They cannot land when the spikes are there. Note that most professional anti-bird spike systems have blunt materials. They are not there to cause harm to wildlife. Instead, they fan out and take up space, which prevents birds from roosting and nesting at that spot.
Remove Nesting Material
Note that it only takes birds a few days to make a nest they will use. This can happen in the spring, often during March and April in the UK. They can gather a variety of materials in order to build their base. This can include twigs and sticks, as well as moss and plants. So, another way to prevent wild birds from building their nests is to make sure that there are no materials lying around that they can easily access.
You should make a conscious effort to remove nesting material from your property. This means some spring cleaning before the nesting season. You should make sure that you clean up any plants you have, cutting away twigs and removing them from the property. You also want to clean out the guttering, getting rid of moss or any other debris that could be used by birds.
The Law on Bird Nests
Perhaps you are thinking to yourself, do you really need to use these measures to prevent nests? Is the problem that serious? Well, the answer is yes. This is all to do with the law surrounding birds nesting on properties. You can get into a lot of trouble if you try to remove a nest, and it is against the law to destroy one. Here is the law that you need to be aware of and why you should be pre-emptive with measures.
Namely, the piece of legislation you have to be aware of is the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. This makes it an offence to take, damage or destroy a nest being used. So, once a nest is built and there are birds using it, you are going to be unable to do anything about it. The only way to stop this is to prevent a bird’s nest in the first place.
Therefore, do not assume that you can discard a bird’s nest that is on your house. This is going to be against the law. You will need to seek help when it is not the breeding season to ensure a good way to remove it. It is recommended that you deter birds from your home in the first place to avoid this hassle.