On 5/7/07 02:01, in article , "Anne
Jackson" wrote:

The message from "Dick Chambers"
contains these words:

I have lived in the same house in Leeds for the last 33 years. During the
first 27 (approximately) of these years, I hardly ever saw a snail, although
I did have a large number of slugs. During the last 6 (approx) years, there
has been a dramatic increase in the number of snails.
snip

I have the same problem here, in Perth. I put it down to the much milder
winters and the lack of thrushes in my garden. We used to have lots of
thrushes, now we have none.

We've noticed more thrushes around in the last few days and we think this
may be because we're finding snail shells empty on several paths.
And as a by the way, we think we've got cuckoos around, too. We haven't
heard any here but one of the staff saw a robin feeding a much larger bird
in one of the greenhouses the other day. I asked about this on the
birdwatching group and apparently, cuckoos do favour robins' nests. Ray says
he can't remember when he last heard a cuckoo round here and I never have so
I don't know what's happened or changed to make them come in here, if that's
what's really happening.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)