Jane Ransom wrote in message
...
In article , john.morgan
writes:

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs
you may have killed

I think you will find that:
a) Blackbirds and thrushes are not carrion eaters ie they
will not eat something already dead.

Perhaps I was a little too dogmatic, never having seen a
verified report of Blackbirds eating dead slugs. They are
recorded as eating bodies of snails that have been opened by
Song Thrushes, and will eat softbill food which contains
dead
invertebrates at artificial/garden feeders.They may be able
to distinguish decaying slugs from non-decaying, but I doubt
if they wait around for signs of movement in their prey so
long as it appears fresh :-) I've seen one take a
(presumably) drowned earthworm from a puddle.

snip
I have said it before and I'll say it again. I went
through my bird book from cover to cover listing the
birds that eat slugs
snip

As_my_bird book consists of 9 very large volumes, you will
forgive me if I don't follow suit ;-) It lists slugs and
small
snails for Blackbird, although no analysis of quantity is
mentioned. The other 5, W. European, breeding species in
the genus Turdus all include slugs in their diet, with a
stomach contents analysis reported for 244 Song Thrush on
Helgoland that revealed 9.7% slugs. I did not have to think
too long or too hard about what other birds might eat slugs,
and quickly verified from literature that Black-headed Gull
and Little Owl do so.

Can I respectfully suggest that your 'bird book' is not up
to the same standards as an internationally accepted,
ornithological handbook ;-) Also, if you have said it
before, then please do not say it again as you are obviously
in error. People who see that their gardens do not have the
species of birds that you list might reason that it is OK to
use molluscides, because they will not be harming any stone
curlews, corncrakes, spotted crakes or black-tailed godwits
:-( And if they_have_been using molluscides, perhaps they've
noticed that their Song Thrushes have disappeared. I
recognise that this is circumstantial evidence - however,
research is going on into the Song Thrush decline, and, not
unexpectedly, it's_not_being funded by Fisons.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited
with beer?

But make sure that there is a lip above the surface so
that you don't also catch ground beetles as these prey
on slugs.

The problem with pitfalls is their lack of discrimination.
Perhaps somebody out there has an improved design they could
share with us?

Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

Then again, there is some question as to how many slugs a
hedgehog will eat. The consensus is that they far prefer
cat food and beetles!!!

Plenty of scope for research, then. And if hedgehogs are
like humans, why should they bother to search the hills for
that little family restaurant with the superb cuisine, when
it's so much easier to drop into McD's :-))

Cheers

John