Crows eat lawn and garden pests

Crows are good for Charlottetown, even posh Brighton

I never wanted to be the Lieutenant Governor of PEI and even less now that a few hundred crows live on her roof.

That would be annoying but Charlottetown is only making it worse with the ineffective crow control measures it is suggesting.

If they want the crows off the LG’s mansion Fanningbrook, try insulating the building so it doesn’t warm the birds. Stop herding them into a tighter and tighter clump.

Welcome them to your neighborhood.

Crows like cities and tall trees in cities. Attempts to stop that have been a waste of energy and money wherever they have been tried.

Besides, I like the crows. I don’t like their droppings on the car or driveway but you can wash them off.

I don’t like them picking at my garbage bags but I learned to put them securely in the garbage cans.

What I do like the crows for, besides being cheeky, is eating the chinch bugs, grubs and other pests that infest my yard.

Several years ago my lawn was going brown with chinch bug damage. We counted over 30 grubs per square foot.

My neighbors were spraying for them every year with no success. The year before I killed all the grass along the sidewalk with over-spraying so I checked Google for a natural solution.

Crows and water are the solution for many lawn pests. Crows love grubs and other yard and garden pests. A well watered lawn keeps the grubs and pests near or on the surface where the crows can feast on them during the day.

I tried it and it works. Grubs like drought. They head below the grass line and out of the crows reach. I kept the lawn watered all spring and summer and counted grubs next year. There were fewer than 5 per square foot, except near the foundation. The crows were afraid to get close to the house so I left bread for them.

# Just Water Option (Canada, U.S.)
If you had small patches of this sort in the past, and they never developed into larger areas, they probably won’t this time either. However to minimize the possibility that the patches will expand, keep the grass around areas that are damaged and other drought-stressed areas of the lawn well watered through the remaining droughty periods. To further reduce drought stress, mow at 3 inches (7.5 cm height), or at the highest setting your mower will allow which on many home mowers is 2.5 inches or 5 cm. (Chinch bugs like drought-stressed grass). See CULTURAL CONTROLS for more about mowing. Control of Chinch Bug Without Pesticides

If we get rid of the birds and stop spraying chemicals, we will be in a fine pickle. Leave the birds alone.

For more on crows see US Humane Society Solving Problems with Crows, and In the Company of Crows and Ravens, which is excerpted at Yale Press