“My neighbor is out there working on his lawn all of the time. I mean, he’s really dedicated to having great grass. But after he’s out there throwing the grass seed around, I notice there’s always bunches of birds in his lawn. Are they eating his grass seeds? And if that’s true, what’s the point of trying to plant grass?” Harold is a South Shore homeowner with concerns. “I mean, I’d like to have a better lawn, but I don’t want to spend the money if the birds are just going to eat it all.”
Understanding the culinary habits of birds in the South Shore
I think we all appreciate that birds have to eat. What do birds eat? Seeds rank high on the list of the favorite foods list – and that certainly includes grass seed. While no individual bird will eat all that much, homeowners who see large flocks of hungry starlings, grackles, or other migrating birds landing on their lawn do have some cause for concern. These birds need a lot of energy to complete their seasonal migrations, and they won’t hesitate to eat every seed they see.
What can be done to keep birds from eating all of the grass seed?
As a provider of aeration and seeding services in the South Shore, we have three recommendations to help prevent birds from eating all of the grass seed.
The first solution is to provide an appealing, alternative source of food for the birds. A bird feeder full of sunflower seeds, cracked corn, and other types of bird food will give migrating birds more calories and flavor than the grass seed. They will focus their attention there, minimizing the harm done to your lawn.
The second recommendation is choosing power seeding for your lawn. It sounds like your neighbor is planting his grass using the broadcast method – scattering seeds on the surface of the lawn. This is a traditional method that offers limited results while making it easy for birds to eat a lot of seed quickly. The alternative, which uses a little bit of technology, involves power seeding. Your local lawn service uses machinery to physically deposit the grass seed below the surface of the soil. They do this because the more soil-to-seed contact you have, the better the grass growth is – but as an added bonus, seeds that are beneath the soil are much less likely to be eaten than seeds that are on top of the soil.
The third recommendation to keep birds from eating your grass seed is to cover freshly seeded areas with bird netting or other protective meshes. These only need to stay in place long enough for the grass seed to sprout and get started – after that, they won’t be of interest to the birds.
