Insect control /Garden

The best insect-eating birds are chickadees, barn swallows, purple martins, robins, mockingbirds, nuthatches and woodpeckers. They are capable of eating 1,000 insects in a single afternoon without doing any damage to the environment. All birds have three primary needs: water, food, and shelter. How you provide these things will determine the types of birds you attract. The trick is providing the right type so that you are more likely to attract insect-eating birds.




Provide Water
Step 1


A bird bath will attract most birdsSet up a birdbath. Almost every type of bird, except owls, will be attracted by a birdbath.


Step a
Most insect-eating birds do not migrate. They should be supplied with water throughout the year.

Step b
Make sure that your birdbath is no more than 3 inches deep with a rough surface to ensure the birds have a firm grip.

Step c
Place the birdbath away from trees, shrubs and fences that can enable neighborhood cats to prey upon them.

Step d
Clean your birdbath once a month. Use a solution of about 3/4 cup bleach to 1 gallon of water and a stiff brush.


Provide Food
Step 1
Abandon the idea that if you feed insect-eating birds they won't eat the insects. Most birds use insects to feed their young or require a diet of both seeds and insects to survive.

Step a
Set out a bird feeder.

Step b
Fill your bird feeder with sunflower seeds, peanut kernels, nutmeats, safflower seeds, thistle seeds, canary seeds and safflower seeds. Do not fill it with bird food that contains corn, millet and milo which will attract strictly seed-eating birds.

Step c
Put out a suet feeder. Suet is a favorite of insect-eating birds such as woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, wrens, creepers, kinglets, and cardinals.

Step d
Keep all feeders stocked throughout the year. If the food level is too low, the birds will move on.


Provide Shelter
Step 1
Set up several bird houses on posts in a sunny area about seven to ten feet of the ground. Make sure the house is the right dimensions to attract chickadees, titmice, or wrens. These three types of birds are good insect-eaters and will use bird houses.

Step a
Set up a few owl nesting boxes. Nesting boxes will attract screech owls, barn owls, barred owls and saw-whet owls. Owls not only eat insects, they also eat mice, voles and shrews.

Step b
Set up a martin bird house. Martin bird houses are birdhouses that have several rooms and will attract purple martins. These houses should be mounted onto poles at least fifteen feet high with forty feet of flying space around it. Clean out the house each year to ensure that the martins return.

Step c
Set up a winter roost. A winter roost looks like a bird house, except that the hole is at the bottom. It provides a temporary shelter for birds during the cold months




As well as wild birds, poultry in the garden will help keep down insect numbers. Ducks have an amazing ability to pluck flies and other insects from the air and chickens are skilled at scoffing up fallen grub infested fruit.

Hens have been called chicken tractors because of their ability to work the soil. A popular and workable idea is to have two runs to a poultry shed. The hens are in one while vegetables and flowers grow in the other after harvest the runs are swapped over and the hens eat the up the greenery left and any residual insects. A new garden is made in the hen matured well worked soil of the original run. Fruit trees overhanging the run can add shade and fallen fruit for the chickens.