Driving by a pea field near Arden in early August, we noticed a flock of black birds swarming in the peas near the edge of a treed yard. Should we be concerned?
They could be eating the peas or they could just be eating insects they find in the pea crop but damaging peas plants in the process.
With these peas very close to harvest and starting to dry down, it is unlikely that the black birds were eating pea aphids.
Blackbirds could be eating grasshoppers but peas are not a preferred food source for grasshoppers, and grasshoppers will feed on peas if more preferred food sources are not available. Most feeding and damage from grasshoppers occurs at field edges where they have moved into the crop from ditches.
A 1978 publication entitled Blackbirds and the Protection of Field Crops, suggests blackbird flocks in August and September increase in size and prefer to be where food and water are located close together. They spend their days eating, drinking, and resting in trees. They do eat weed seeds from green foxtail, wild oats, and wild buckwheat whenever they are available.
It states that blackbirds could be beneficial because they eat insects harming the crops but warns that blackbirds can be a serious problem to individual farmers.
They suggest using some frightening devices such as exploders/ bangers and scarecrows that you move around frequently.