dense population plus birdwatching: welcoming birds without welcoming rats

[jadelennox]

This is a question for specifically other urban folks living in areas with increased rat presence in recent years. The answers to these questions are very different if you're not in an urban area.

I asked some audobon people and they were so flummoxed by the notion of city folks having specific bird watching needs. (It was almost funny but in retrospect it probably comes back to historical racism and outdoorsiness, doesn't it? Ugh.)

(For non-urban folks, whether or not you personally think rats are demonized is unfortunately irrelevant in urban areas. A large rat presence means people put out poison, poisoned rats get eaten by raptors, and then the raptors die from the rat poison. It's pretty bad. Rats caused some astronomically expensive property damage for me last winter, but that's almost incidental to the larger "poison" problem.)

Over the past few years, I've been making my home a lot more bird friendly. But I live in a city with an increased rat presence, so how to avoid being more rat friendly?

• I still have feeders out, but I keep wildlife cams with night cameras trained underneath them so I know if the rats have found them. So far, they haven't, because the feeders are far away from the nearby dumpsters. (Mice have found them, but mice aren't the problem here.)
• I know they burrow in the compost pile, and I can't figure out what to do about that. By which I mean, I know exactly what to do about that (stop composting) but I can't bear to do it. Yet.
• All the bird-friendly garden suggestions are extremely rat friendly. I have lots of tall, seed bearing native plants, which provide shelter, hiding spaces, and food for birds, insects, and rats. Pest control people basically want no seeds, and no plants over an inch or two. Aiyee, from a bird perspective.
• At one point I had some wood and brush piles which audobon suggests to provide shelter for birds and their prey, but it had to go, because whoops, they also covered rat tunnels.
• Also pest control people don't want you to have any outdoor water sources, like puddles or bird baths.

For now I'm relying on a wildlife cam, my Planned Rodentood (a rat contraceptive station, which they mostly ignore), and regular tunneling inspections all around the building. Crossed fingers that will be enough, for now.

So, if you're urban, and you live in a place with a high rat population, how do you make the place bird friendly but not rat friendly?

I have so many birds and I love it, and I really don't want them to stop seeing my home as friendly to them, but I need to manage the other problem and it's rough.

Comments

[meowmensteen]

I don't have a whole lot of advice. I have a cat, she catches rats... but also birds so that part isn't great.

One thing is that I've given up on having loose seed feeders and either use suet or seed bells that have all the seeds stuck together. I've noticed with the loose seeds, some of the birds will pick through them for their favorite kind of seed and throw the other ones on the ground which attracts rodents.

One thing I've heard of, but I don't have any first hand knowledge on, is that people get synthetic cat urine and spray it around areas like compost piles. Rats tend to avoid areas that smell like cat pee. I wonder how well that works, but it's an idea.

In my spice garden I have a Bay Laurel tree. It's about ten feet tall, and as it was growing I kept the trunk pruned well. Now it has this nice dark foliage on top, but a bare stump. Birds love staging there before they go to my feeders. They feel safe hiding in the dark leaves. It's right by my front window, so I get to watch a lot of bird action in there. I've never seen a rat climb up the trunk or any evidence that they've nested in there. I guess it's too high up, or maybe they don't like the aroma of Bay leaves... that's the other bonus. I have an abundance of bay leave. For a water bath, I hung a large plant saucer from one of the branches of the Bay. This also keeps my cat away from it too since she can't climb the narrow trunk. I often see birds drinking from it and bathing in it. I change the water pretty regularly though, to keep mosquitoes away.

Haha, my local audubon people weren't too interested in any of my pigeon questions. Pigeon are birds too!

[jadelennox]

that's smart. they do sometimes manage to make a mess at the suet feeder, especially when the sparrows go for it (even though it's the upside-down kind, the persistent little weirdos). But it's nothing compared to the seed feeder, which they're utter slobs at.

The cats catch mice in the house but I'd be worried about them going for rats, honestly, because of the neighborhood poison problem. There are plenty of neighborhood cats, and there's a ton of catnip growing in my yard to encourage them, so I like to think that helps a little.

Feeder hanging from the tree is a nice idea.

And pigeons are totally birds, too! They're even interesting birds, and beautiful, in their own way.