Preparing for the Birds

   July 14th and we are preparing for the onslaught of hungry birds in the next 3 or 4 weeks.  Talk about a steep learning curve, it seems like just yesterday we discussed the fact that we didn't need any bird nets because we hadn't seen any birds.  We were sitting around discussing our first year's harvest with eager anticipation in 2010.  The next week THEY came.  In no time our Chardonnay and cab franc were stripped of half their fruit and they were just starting to strip our Chambourcin when the netting arrived.  That year was a disaster so we learned a valuable lesson.  The next year we thought we were ready but despite our netting and shotguns the 4 foot nets just were not enough.  Last year we bought 18 foot nets and totally encased our vines and even used double nets 4 and 18 foot nets on some of our chardonnay and cab franc vines.  Despite our best efforts, we still lost about 40% of our most valuable grapes.  This year we are modifying our nets with spreaders made of PVC pipe and twine. Our nets are going up early and we are also going to try an electronic bird distress system that is guaranteed to keep the birds away.  We will see how that all works.  Each year our system improves and hopefully this year will be our best harvest so far.  We are keeping our fingers crossed and our shotguns loaded!