"S. McLaren" writes:
I've got a pack of black birds who are rumaging thru my garden, digging up
my plants, mulch etc.. I want to kill them. They are a pest.

There is mention made from time to time of "black birds", but I don't just
know what they are, for they seem not to be part of the Sydney scene. I
assume they must be an introduced species? It is not legal to kill any
native species, no matter how humanely it could be done.

I once needed to capture an Indian Mynah that was the victim of some
tangled fishing line, and I experimented with feeding it pieces of
valium tablet inside small balls of squashed bread. I estimate that it
would take between half and one whole tablet to slow the bird right
down to allow it to be easily netted. Other species might react quite
differently, though. The advantage of using a sedative instead of some
poison is that if the wrong bird gets the bread, after a short spell
of drowsiness it should be perfectly okay. Once you have your target
in hand, you can dispose of it quickly and humanely, if permissible.
Make sure that you keep the birds around for the 30 minutes or so that
it takes for the sedative to take effect; you don't want them to fall
asleep in a tree over your pool, or in a neighbour's yard, etc.

it had no effect on the buggers. I roughly know where they like to dig. No
other birds would be harmed because I'll watch over the spot. Anyhow, the
black birds have driven out all the other birds except the big scary ravens.

Make sure you can legally dispose of them before taking action.

A suggestion that I have heard for gardeners whose grounds are host to
enthusiastic diggers such as brush turkeys and lyre birds is to fix
chicken wire or nylon netting (of the type used by turf growers to hold
their rolled turf together) over the top of your mulch.

Can someone nominate a web site that has photos of these black birds?
--
John Savage (for email, replace "ks" with "k" and delete "n")