Those Thieving Magpies!

Some guests to our garden are exceptionally friendly and resourceful; others aren't so much. As mentioned before, we are growing raspberries and strawberries, which have been blooming and riping since the end of June. However, someone's been coming into our garden and eating them.

Let me introduce to you, the common Magpie. The Magpie is not a welcomed guest to gardens, as they like to steal fruits, pull out plants, and attack or scare away other, more friendly birds. To get them out of your garden and to stay out, as well as with most pests, there are two organic methods one can use and should become familiar with: exclusion and frightening.

Frightening animals is a safe and highly recommended method of pest control in our garden. In the Magpie case, we installed a few additions to our garden:


In this picture, you can see a shiny pin-wheel at the bottom, and a hanging tin-foil tray at the top. These things refract light, move with the wind, and occasionally cause small noises. Inconsistent and unexplained shining of light, noises, and movements tend to scare most birds. Putting these things next to and on our berry producing plants has successfully reduced the amount of Magpies hanging out around them.


This is a scarecrow, and an actually morbid one at that. Scarecrows give the illusion that there is a gardener present, and even further, you can see that this gardener is reflecting light. Other recommendations for scarecrow construction include faces with eyes on both sides of the head, lose fitting clothing that moves in the wind, and shiny objects in their "hands," each of which would mimic an actual gardener, without one being present.

Without causing harm to the actual animal, you can exclude it from entering your garden. In the case of a magpie eating our garden's berries, you can cover plants in a breathing blanket, or chicken wire. This method, however, becomes very complicated and frustrating, if you're working with a lot of gardeners. It can be efficient for some pests, if all that is necessary to exclude the animal is a fence around the garden.

Our Naturalization Project actually had a hare visit while I was writing this. They came right in, hopped over to our Saskatoons, and just started eating the leaves off of it. It began to eat whole plants, and grasses in our native bed. In this case, we'll have to keep a gate closed in order to prevent hares from getting in, or wanting to get in, to eat our plants.

Happy gardening, and good luck with your pests!