When Birds Take Garden Pond Fish
Deter Herons and Kingfishers from Fishing Your Water Feature
A pond stocked with fish is a charming garden feature, but it’s also a temptation to creatures that eat fish, including birds. Herons and kingfishers visit garden pools for a meal; osprey, magpies, jays, sea birds, and ducks will as well.
What’s Taking the Fish?
When fish disappear, the first step is to find out what’s taking them. Predators like herons are good at learning your movements, so spotting the culprit may require a change in routine. Check the pond at times when you usually aren’t around. A light near the pond controlled by a remote switch helps as well.
The Scarecrow Approach to Protecting Fish from Birds
Herons prefer to fish in solitude, so installing a replica of a heron by the pond can deter them. This strategy, however, can backfire in several ways: during breeding season, the statue can actually attract passing herons looking for a mate, and it can train fish not be afraid of a heron shape.
An owl, snake, crocodile, or other predator replica is probably a better choice. Floating crocodile and hippopotamus heads are available that drift around and look very realistic. If you feed songbirds, remember that some of these scarecrows, particularly owls and snakes, will frighten them away as well.
Train Your Fish to Avoid Fishing Birds
Feed the fish daily at the same time, so they associate a human shape at a particular time with food. At other times, frighten them with a heron shape. They’ll learn not to rise to the surface except at feeding time.
Provide Pond Fish with Shelter
Giving fish a place to hide helps them avoid being eaten. Floating plants, overhanging rocks, underwater caves built with rocks, and submerged drainage pipe all provide shelter. A fish refuge—a submerged cage that fish can get into but predators can’t penetrate—is another possibility.
Physical Barriers to Keep Birds Out of Ponds
Herons typically walk into water, so a strand of fishing line around the pond, or across points of easy access, can discourage a heron. Place the taut line at a height of 12 to 15 cm (5 to 6 inches). Lengths of fishing line crisscrossing the pond can discourage birds like kingfishers from diving.
If fishing line doesn’t work, covering the pond with a net is an extreme but effective method as long as predators cannot get in around the edges. One might do this temporarily, until the pest bird becomes discouraged and goes off to fish elsewhere, or at certain times of day when the bird tends to visit.
Scare Tactics to Frighten Away Pond Predators
There are various motion detectors available that emit loud noises, activate bright lights, or spray water to frighten unwelcome birds and other animals in gardens. An upright motion-detecting sprinkler is perhaps the best option: it won’t offend the neighbors, it waters the lawn, and it has the potential to scare off stray cats, dogs, and wild animals, as well as fishing birds.
Outwitting Birds That Steal Pond Fish
Birds that stalk your pond are intelligent, skilled hunters. They'll eventually devise a way around almost everything you do to outwit them. If they win the game of wits and clean out your pond, wait to restock —with any luck the predators will get tired of waiting and look elsewhere for food.
Whatever you do, take care not to harm the birds.
Read About other Pest Birds
Sources:
Practical Water Garden Solutions
How to Stop Pond Predators Drs. Foster and Smith
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
