Methods for control of starlings

Perhaps you are tired and very sick of the ness of starlings. Everyone loves wildlife and its beauty, but that does not always remain the case when you are sharing the same living space with such wildlife. Birds, skunks, opossums and bats are a whole hell when they invade your living space. Birds such as starlings are a particular menace to the peace of any establishment when they flock in thousands. But that is just how they love to live their life. They often want to live in hundreds or thousands, thriving in both urban and suburban areas. And when they do they often cause quite a distress. 

Starlings are a beautiful lot, but they are more than that when you have thousands of them on your property. First comes the issue of wastes. Starlings feed quite often and this translates to huge heaps of wastes on the roosting places. This becomes a serious threat if they are roosting on property as that may compromise the structural integrity of the whole structure. Move further from that and you will realize that the costs of cleaning after these birds are not anywhere near easy and cheap. If that means cleaning your compound every day then you know more than anyone else what the hell that is. 

Starlings are not any friendly to crops either. They will flock into your garden and feed themselves after every grain and cereal they can come across. But is that all that you want? I guess not. And if you have thousands of starlings around and too small a garden then I assure you there is a problem. You are going to have an empty barn at harvesting time, which is not quite a good thing to do. For individuals who rely on crops for fortune this can be very disheartening, but do not fret yet, you can always find a solution with the experts. 

Noise is one other thing synonymous with large flocks of starlings. They will make all kinds of noise for different things - from awakening you during the night to informing their friends of a new season arriving. This can deny you the peace of mind and make your home a madhouse altogether. Everyone treats their home as a castle where they can rest and stay most of the time, but with the loud noises of starlings around I don't think that is going to hold. They will surely seek to irritate and even evict you from your own space.

There is also a high disease risk when dealing with starlings. They will love to roost near livestock because such areas are often warm, but with this they can transmit disease from one livestock facility to another. If the livestock are infected at one point then the perching starlings may get infected too and fly to new locations carrying the disease with them.

Control techniques

Bird netting is one of the mist effective techniques you can deploy on starlings to control and ward them off in specific areas. Netting works not only for starlings but a range of several other birds. It works by denying the starlings a chance to land and roost, forcing them to look for alternative shelter which means flying out of your property. Stealth net is one of the trademark facilities you can use for bird netting. It has a versatile design that can be installed on any structure or space. It can be used in any opening and installed in different ways, including vertically and horizontally at the target point to ensure it works out to keep the birds out of the guarded zone. 

Electrical shocking is also a viable technique for controlling starlings. This involves generating a mild shock that strikes the birds once they land on specific sites. The shock is very uncomfortable and conditions the birds to avoid designated areas, but does not cause injury or harm to the bird in the process. Once birds are conditioned to stay away from specific sites they may be forced to look for alternative shelter elsewhere if they don't find a favorable place in the vicinity. Electrical shock systems can be deployed in numerous places to guard critical infrastructure from being overwhelmed by starlings. It works perfectly since starlings are unable to develop resistance against it. 

Audio deterrents use a combination of different digital audio systems to psychologically harass birds into flying away. Audio deterrents use a mix of different sounds that generate emotional responses from the birds mostly associated with danger, making the birds feel endangered in their environment and thus fly away in search for safety. Such audio includes distress calls, hunter and predator sounds as well as explosion sounds that are likely to force the birds into believing that they are in danger. Once birds associate the current shelter with danger they will most likely avoid coming back.

There are also a variety of repellant gels usable against starlings. Repellant gels are specifically designed to make target surfaces unusable by starlings. The gels are made to create too sticky a terrain the starlings cannot stand. Once they feel uncomfortable on these surfaces they will seek to avoid them, which may mean relocating to new shelters. 

Shooting is another tactic used to disturb the starlings in their roosting areas. Shooting is an effective method for irritating birds rather than reducing the bird numbers. Frequent shooting will force the birds to change their roosting places. 



Also read our other bird tip: Will repellents get a pigeon out of the attic? (none work well)