DON’T USE POISON AS PEST CONTROL! Pesticides used in your garden can kill songbirds, who feed on seeds. Other birds eat invertebrates, who also consume seeds and plants laced with pesticides. They also kill insects, making it difficult for birds to find food.

Many poisons are marketed as mess-free solutions to eliminate mice and rats, as they eat the poison and go off to die elsewhere. Rodenticides often have long half-lives, meaning the rodents eat far more than a lethal dose. They are also anticoagulants, causing the rodents to become sluggish and disoriented as they slowly bleed to death. This makes them easy targets for hawks, owls, crows, ravens, roadrunners, and vultures. The birds then bleed internally from the poison and die .

Additionally, birds can develop severe neurological problems and even die when they consume prey that has been killed using ammunition made with lead.

What can you use instead? Snap traps are efficient and more humane than poison. But the best rodent trap you can ask for is a raptor! The American Bird Conservancy has tips on other strategies to avoid pesticide use: https://abcbirds.org/news/ways-to-reduce-pesticides/

DON’T USE STICKY FLY TRAPS! Many birds are insectivores, and will chase flying insects into sticky traps. They will become trapped and will often lose feathers as they struggle to free themselves. Once freed, it is very difficult to clean the sticky residue from their feathers.

KEEP YOUR CATS INSIDE! On average, indoor cats live twice as long as outdoor cats. Keeping them inside protects them from predators, cars, and disease, and it goes a long way to protecting wild birds. An estimated 2.4 BILLION birds are killed by cats each year in the U.S. alone. Go to https://abcbirds.org/solutions/keep-cats-indoors/ for more information.

USE WINDOW STRIKE DETERRENTS Reflective windows are a common cause of death in birds. The ubiquity of glass throughout the world means collisions are the second most common human-caused threat to birds (following cat predation). Luckily, there are simple steps you can take to mitigate or prevent this problem. Often one or two windows are hit over and over, so you can focus on just those windows. For suggestions on what you can do, visit https://abcbirds.org/strategies/solutions-for-homes/