Bird scarers - what have people found to be most effective?

[Cadalot]

Here is my modified MK V Bird Scarer. Alans Allotment: Modified MK V Bird Scarer

Here they are insitu Alans Allotment: Compost & Cucumbers

[Potstubsdustbins]

^^^^^^^^^Just make sure it does not look like a ...................pigeon, we call those ...............decoys. If you can make it look like a predator species it might well work.

[Mr Bones]

I tie an empty plastic bottle to three feet of string and hang it from a fishing rod (or bendy tent pole) at 45 degrees so it can bounce about in the wind. It deters most pigeons from the immediate area but doesn't seem to bother the smaller birds.

[Jungle Jane]

I fed the birds one of my unnetted strawberries the other day,I was eating one & noticed one of them had been half eaten by a slug so I broke it up & put it in my bird feeding area. Birds here prefer the seeds,fatballs & mealworms (& cheese today there's a lot of young starlings) I find if I look after them,they make good allies,I had a blackbird in a trough yesterday found a wiggly bug & today sparrows were following each other around my tomato canes,I wouldn't scare a group of predators away but if the only thing for them to forage is my strawberries they'd have to take them for survival.

[Jungle Jane]

Took this photo just now,a little tree sparrow checking things out & a million starlings

[TheMidnightGrower]

I use my housemate as he is good at running out, waving his arms about. Trouble is he sometimes goes 'off plot' to work, go shopping etc which is a bit of a let down.

I find that having a lot of obsticles scattered about stops big birds - so no neat rows of canes, but scattered wigwams as it makes landing harder for big birds, so they seem less inclined to bother.