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Birds in the garden are beautiful to see, offering you a landscape of multiple colors. However, some bird species can become annoying, from the dove to a woodpecker.
Birds gather around the patio to the pool, leaving you with droppings, and we know that isn’t very pleasant. Now, you may have heard about using peppermint for birds to keep them away.
Maybe you are wondering if peppermint repels birds. Most likely, you can, as it offers you the versatility to use it for different purposes.
However, there is more to deter birds, and you need a multi-sensory approach from smell, touch, to sight. A practical way is using nets or spikes, and for businesses and homes, it becomes overwhelming.
Therefore, you need to alter the bird’s behavior without using a physical barrier. So let us look a bit closer at using essential oil.
Will it keep them away?
Over the years, people used peppermint essential oil for different purposes, and many have experimented using it as a natural repellent. People use it to deter mosquitoes, rodents, and it keeps the home smelling fresh.
You face a pigeon problem, yes they are cute, but their droppings carry fungus and make you sick. You may have found your attic, water towers, ledges, and dirtier with pigeon droppings.
The reason is that it is ideal for them to roost and nest, and diseases are present. The dropping is unhealthy from fresh to standing for weeks getting dry.
However, you can fix it with different repellents for birds. Some people recommend using essential oils or borax. But the fact remains, why does it repel the birds?
Their reaction to certain smells
The bird’s respiratory systems weaker than humans, and their bodies are different as they can fly. Imagine if you could fly, how much money would you save on gas.
When you use pure peppermint oil, it has a strong smell, and pet owners avoid using it around their birds. Furthermore, other items can also affect a bird, such as scented candles and air fresheners.
The chemicals present causes respiratory failure in birds, and placing some essential oils on windowsills are effective bird control. For this reason, yes, peppermint oil is dangerous for birds. Now the next question:
Is it an effective deterrent?
Peppermint essential oils help to control mice, raccoons, and woodpeckers. As the bird does not have physically powerful lungs, it does not like the smell, and using peppermint essential oils as a spray is one way to keep these annoying pests away.
So what scents do birds hate? Birds do not like the smell of peppermint, and neither do they enjoy the aroma of citronella. While pleasant to us, the bird kingdom does not like the aroma. So yes, you can use peppermint essential oils to deter birds away.
Practical tips
Many pests do not like the smell of mint and provide you with a natural insecticide to deter flies, mosquitoes, beetles, raccoons, and works well as a bird repellent. So to remove pesky birds, there are different methods you can use for bird control:
Cotton Balls
Everyone has cotton balls in the home, and applying up to five drops of the oil on one cotton ball provides a strong scent to keep birdies away. You can place the cotton balls around the house where you find the birds nesting. For example, put it in the attic, on the patio, and keep out different pests from entering the house. However, it helps if you do this once a month as a bird repellent.
Pecking areas
The following technique is excellent as a bird repellent and for deterring woodpeckers in the garden. All you need to do is dab the oil in the areas you see the bird pecking. The reason the woodpecker starts picking at the house is the insects that live there. Therefore, you will catch two flies at once the bird and insect, and is excellent for bird control.
Using sprays
You can find several smells that repel birds available in sprays available to use around the home. One is using two tablespoons of peppermint oil mixed with two tablespoons of water in a spray bottle.
Please give it a good shake before applying and spray the mixture where the birds are accumulating the most. The technique works as an excellent bird repellent.
Another great spray to use is water, vinegar, and chili peppers to repel birds. Crush the red/green chili pepper and mix it with the vinegar and water in a crock-pot to heat up for up to an hour. Alternatively, you can place the mixture in a glass jar to infuse in the sun.
Once infused, place it in a mister and spray in areas you find the birds causing problems. If the problem persists, we recommend calling your local pest control service to help remove the problem.
Other Methods You Can Use
While using peppermint oil in different ways helps to remove them from certain areas of the property, there are other natural methods as well:
Foil decoys
When critters and birds wreak havoc, you can place strips of aluminium foil under the dirt around your plants. When picking at it, they do not like the feeling under the beak and stays away. You can also hang strips of it from trees and high points. The sun flashes on the foil bothering the bird’s eyes and will not come near it—the same works for woodpeckers by hanging an aluminium plate on the tree where it resides.
Baking Soda
Pigeons love to nest on the patio, and sprinkling baking soda where they perch frightens them away. They do not like the feeling of it under the claws. You can even use sticky-side-out duct tape.
Fake it
To keep birds away from your pool, deck, garden, place a rubber snake, or owl. As the bird flies overhead and sees the predator, it will not land near it. You will need to move it around once a day to make it look real.
Optical Gel
Another exceptional bird barrier you can use is Optical Gel to get rid of your resident permanently. Even if the birds used the habitat for a year, they would move on.
Optical Gel focuses on the multi-sensory approach as it disorientates there sight. As birds have ultraviolet receptors to see smoke, they see it in the gel. Furthermore, it affects their smell with a blend of citronella and peppermint oil. Lastly, it affects their touch, as it is sticky when the bird touches it.
However, you need to know where and how to apply it. With the gel, you can quickly do bird management and is an easy task.
Gel Application
Start giving the area the birds has claimed their home a thorough cleaning. Remove the nests and give it a pressure wash with sanitization of a 10% bleach solution. The gel you find in trays to place on pipes, roof peaks, ledges, and locations where they roost.
You can space the trays every six inches for nests and up to eight inches for roosting at night. Place the tray on an open ledge about one-inch back and 10-inches apart. Now apply the optical gel with small dabs to the trays and not run out even mounted upside down.
You need to check the sites every few days for two weeks and amend it accordingly when it comes to gulls. The gel needs replacing every two to four years, and you need to keep the area clean.
You can use the Optical Gel in homes or a business made with organic ingredients. Place it on balconies, beams, AC equipment, ledges, roofs, skylights, steel beams, and windowsills, but the list continues.
Other options
If DIY and homemade methods are not working for the bird infestation, it is time to call in the big guns. With help from a professional service, they can help solve the problem. If you have a severe bird problem using peppermint oil or other techniques may not solve the problem.
Birds are resilient and persistent, and it makes it difficult for you to repel or kill them. For mild infestations, using a DIY pest control can prevent birds and other pests from causing havoc in the home. However, with the help of a pest control company, they can help before it becomes an infestation.
Sources:
https://www.bto.org/our-science/projects/gbw/gardens-wildlife/garden-birds/behaviour
