Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!
Expert reveals cheap trick to keep pigeons out of your garden without causing them harm
A well kept garden could easily come across as an all-you-can-eat opportunity for an opportunistic pigeon, on the lookout for seeds, fruit and anything else you might leave out in your bird feeder.
However, there are cheap and sustainable ways to ward off these feathered fiends without compromising your outdoor haven.
Not only can greedy pigeons gobble up any feed intended for smaller birds, but they also leave a trail of unwanted mess behind them.
American wildlife biology expert for Epic Gardening, Dr Liessa Bowen, has revealed that pigeons can be humanely deterred using shiny objects like pie tins or CDs.
'Pie tins are cheap, shiny, and can be easily hung in trees. Hang several in your fruit trees or along fences where they can gently twirl in the breeze,' she told The Express.
Dr Liessa Bowen revealed hanging up used pie tins or old CDs and DVDs can be a cheap and sustainable way to ward off pesky pigeons (stock image)
If you have a few tins close together, the noise they make brushing against each other in slightly stronger winds can also help startle birds, but the main deterrents are the flashes of light which shine off them.
Birds are known to react cautiously to unfamiliar stimuli, often interpreting them as potential hazards.
Dr Bowen added: 'A single pie tin may not have much effect on a flock of hungry birds. But 10 pie tins twirling around will probably cause the birds to think twice before settling in your trees.'
If you're not a pie fan, there are plenty of similar objects which might otherwise go to waste which you could use, applying the same theory.
CDs are becoming obsolete in the era of streaming, and with vinyl outselling it as the hipster's medium. So if you have a stash of compact disks which never get used, you could repurpose those as reflective bird deterrents.
A shiny ribbon could also be a viable alternative for concerned gardeners, with the added benefit of being even easier to install by just tying round a branch, cage or net. You can even buy specialised bird repellent ribbon or tape.
However, as many gardeners will no, solutions to pests are rarely simple, and Dr Bowen concluded that you might need to get creative by seeing what works well and what doesn't.
Some alternative ways to keep birds away include planting white flowers around your garden - with this colour also signalling danger to some birds - or using sounds like wind chimes or ultrasonic bird-repellents.