Neale Banks writes:
The marauding blackbirds (which are, IMHO, vermin) have dug up yet
another garden :-(

Any suggestions on reasonable and legal ways of dealing with these
miserable creatures?

I have previously written regarding sparrows, and wonder whether a
similar idea could be applied to blackirds? The joy of blackbird
invasion has yet to be experienced here, so I don't know exactly
what they are or what they do. Here's what's effective for sparrows:-

You can protect rows of seedlings from sparrows by stringing a few long
lengths of thin black cotton thread between sticks hammered in at each
end of the row. They don't see the cotton, and encountering it scares
them off. With any luck, it will work with starlings, similarly.
--
John Savage (for email, replace "ks" with "k" and delete "n")