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

[dantesspirit]

Honestly, if you feed the birds, you're going to attract unwanted guests as well.

It didn't matter what food I used, I still had Opossums and rats show up, back when we lived in the city. Even with a stable feral colony around, they still showed up (deer too, actually)- (the ferals were, unfortunately, poisoned by a nam around the corner who deliberately put out antifreeze one fall. So glad we were adopted by Morrigan well before that happened.) And did you know, rats can, and will climb? Yeah, I watched 3 juveniles climb a porch post to get to a feeder once. That was... interesting. If they really want something, they'll figure out how to get it.

At this point, I think it's a part of urban living we have to accept and just do what we can to mitigate the damage caused by them.

As far as the compost pile, try a barrel roller style that's elevated up off the ground. It's completely enclosed and they won't be able to get into it. Otherwise, roofing tin dug down into the ground about 1-2ft, or even hardware cloth buried under the pile and up the sides will help and is a lot cheaper. (We had to dig out our raised beds and lay hardware cloth under them, because of moles.)

Buried metal trash cans work, but may be cost prohibative based on size- it's also a good recommendation for dog feces too.

At any rate, good luck!