Banishing Starlings

Problem. Invading starlings stripping all the small fruit such as grapes or cherries in your orchard. Solution. Brad Fegler of Airstrike Bird Control in Mount Vernon, WA. "That started a lifetime of falconry. Falconry by definition is hunting wild quarry with a trained raptor under natural circumstances. That's what I did for many years and I still do. I lived in an area in California in San Luis Obispo County and it was quickly transforming from cattle country to wine country and with that came problems with birds. Namely, European starlings that come in in big flocks during the time when the fruit is getting ripe and they can devastate the vineyards there."

But chasing off starlings with Falcons isn't the only way to go about it. Cherry farmer Lance Phillips owner of Crimson Gem Orchard in Emmett Idaho: "A couple of years ago we had some really nice ripe trees on the edge of our orchard and some herds of starlings came in and caused anywhere from 15 to 25 percent damage to our fruit trees. So what I did is I got some of those air dancers with the fans and the silk because they're about 20 feet tall and they basically served as a scarecrow. It kind of reminded me of the good old days when we had the scarecrows stuffed full of straw. And here were these new Silk Air dancers that I put into the orchard and sure enough the starlings when they see them they go somewhere else."