Xref: kermit uk.rec.gardening:255967

We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent our
garden seem to give it a miss when we have used metaldhyde in the
form of slug pellets or when applied in liquid form, however small
the area or however few the pellets.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number when
there is metaldehyde about.

Has anyone else noticed this? We do not think that it is our
imagination.

Peter

PS. Up here in the north midlands we had our annual "Flying ant day"
on Monday 5th.

: Peter
:
: PS. Up here in the north midlands we had our annual "Flying ant day"
: on Monday 5th.

Haven't seen flying ants yet but the garden was flying around in the gales
yesterday

Plymouth

Peter wrote in message
...
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 19:57:18 +0200, "john.morgan"
wrote:

Peter wrote in message
.. .
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

John,

Thanks for your interest and comments. I have taken what you have
said to heart. I will try alternative non-poisonous techniques to
get rid of the snails and slugs!

Concerning the sparrows vs blackbird situation, some while ago I was
amazed to see a small sparrow which had been bathing in the
birdbath, pause to see off a male blackbird which wanted to get in.
perhaps we have sparrows that are more confident than usual.

Peter

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

In article , john.morgan john.morgan@atEx
pungebetweencapSaraxie.fr writes
Can I respectfully suggest that your 'bird book' is not up
to the same standards as an internationally accepted,
ornithological handbook ;-)

I have to admit, I have had it a long time

when
it's so much easier to drop into McD's :-))

You'd prefer a McD's would you????
Have you *no* standards !!!!! ))))
--
Jane Ransom in Lancaster.
I won't respond to private emails that are on topic for urg
but if you need to email me for any other reason, put ransoms
at jandg dot demon dot co dot uk where you see

Peter wrote in message
...
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 19:57:18 +0200, "john.morgan"
wrote:

Peter wrote in message
.. .
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

John,

Thanks for your interest and comments. I have taken what you have
said to heart. I will try alternative non-poisonous techniques to
get rid of the snails and slugs!

Concerning the sparrows vs blackbird situation, some while ago I was
amazed to see a small sparrow which had been bathing in the
birdbath, pause to see off a male blackbird which wanted to get in.
perhaps we have sparrows that are more confident than usual.

Peter

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

In article , john.morgan john.morgan@atEx
pungebetweencapSaraxie.fr writes
Can I respectfully suggest that your 'bird book' is not up
to the same standards as an internationally accepted,
ornithological handbook ;-)

I have to admit, I have had it a long time

when
it's so much easier to drop into McD's :-))

You'd prefer a McD's would you????
Have you *no* standards !!!!! ))))
--
Jane Ransom in Lancaster.
I won't respond to private emails that are on topic for urg
but if you need to email me for any other reason, put ransoms
at jandg dot demon dot co dot uk where you see

Peter wrote in message
...
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

On Sat, 17 Jul 2004 19:57:18 +0200, "john.morgan"
wrote:

Peter wrote in message
.. .
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan

John,

Thanks for your interest and comments. I have taken what you have
said to heart. I will try alternative non-poisonous techniques to
get rid of the snails and slugs!

Concerning the sparrows vs blackbird situation, some while ago I was
amazed to see a small sparrow which had been bathing in the
birdbath, pause to see off a male blackbird which wanted to get in.
perhaps we have sparrows that are more confident than usual.

Peter

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

In article , john.morgan john.morgan@atEx
pungebetweencapSaraxie.fr writes
Can I respectfully suggest that your 'bird book' is not up
to the same standards as an internationally accepted,
ornithological handbook ;-)

I have to admit, I have had it a long time

when
it's so much easier to drop into McD's :-))

You'd prefer a McD's would you????
Have you *no* standards !!!!! ))))
--
Jane Ransom in Lancaster.
I won't respond to private emails that are on topic for urg
but if you need to email me for any other reason, put ransoms
at jandg dot demon dot co dot uk where you see

Peter wrote in message
...
We have noticed that the blackbirds normally that frequent
our garden seem to give it a miss when we have used
metaldhyde in the form of slug pellets or when applied in
liquid form, however small the area or however few the
pellets.

Blackbirds and thrushes will eat the bodies of any slugs you
may have killed and then suffer secondary poisoning. This
may not necessarily kill them in their turn, but they can
become much easier prey for cats and other suburban
predators, like a drunk is much easier to hit with a car
compared to a sober pedestrian.

Eventually other blackbirds will find your garden, and hang
out there until you decide it's time to poison them with a
few more slug corpses.

By contrast, the house sparrows seem to increase in number
when there is metaldehyde about.

If your garden is small and you feed the birds (on something
non-poisonous), the presence of larger Blackbirds might have
acted as a deterrent to Sparrows.

Have you tried catching slugs in a pitfall trap baited with
beer? Or get a toad or a hedgehog to take up residence.

John Morgan