It may not help - it would futher complicate bits of the stainlessgrate could get sucked in on impact by a bird. The turbine blades arebroken or bend beyond repair in most bird hits. The best option wouldbe to destroy the bird before it hits the plane. A laser sensor to sense a approaching bird and a powerfull laser beam to kill the bird.

A dead bird is just as destructive as a live one.

Anything that deflects birds will also deflect air. This will reduce the efficiency of the engines by a significant amount. This would reduce range and increase operating costs. While it might save money on an engine that gets hit, it will reduce efficiency on all the planes in the fleet. Overall, it would cost more.

I've tried to find a picture, but can't--I recall actually seeing a kind of wire-cage on the front on some early jet-fighter engines--I'm thinking Me262 or Gloster Meteor. They were hemispherical (for strength I'm thinking)

My guess is that Dwane is right--they decrease efficiency more than they help and little birds and FOD get through anyway. Also, when a big enough bird smashes the wire-hemisphere, you might protect the engine from corn-cobbing, but you'll still lose power because the wires will be blocking the opening. You're still 'in the Hudson'.

it would deflect air, but also, as birds are sucked in, they can actually accelerate to near mach1, at this speed, you are likely to have metal breakage, which worsens the engine damage, unless you make the grate quite robust, in which case you would effect efficiency, not only by deflecting air, but by causing entrance turbulance. the exact dynamics of airflow entering the engine actually can be very influential to efficiency, regardless of any blockage of air, just the pressure waves caused by the small obstructions in the path.

It's time to start hunting the Canada Goose. There are far too many.