Are those starlings?

[Wagtail]

IIRC, in New Zealand the starlings are encouraged with breeding boxes set up on rural properties.

It's to keep down insect pests that the native wildlife can't handle.

Here in Aus, I personally have not seen the huge flocks of starlings that are prevalent in North America... so something must be keeping their numbers down.

 

[k0ua]

IIRC, in New Zealand the starlings are encouraged with breeding boxes set up on rural properties.

It's to keep down insect pests that the native wildlife can't handle.

Here in Aus, I personally have not seen the huge flocks of starlings that are prevalent in North America... so something must be keeping their numbers down.

What ever the heck you got down there to eat starlings, maybe we need some of those.. Starlings are a real plague in a lot of areas here in the Midwest.

 

[oldballs]

There's Starling crap all over my back patio where they set above on the edge of the gutter after feeding on the Juniper berries nearby.......probably a hundred in the group. Oh well, the sleet and freezing rain is covering it up for the moment.

 

[mapper]

At certain times during the winter months starlings will gather into very large groups to roost over night. This happened as I recall in a city park a few years ago in the Midwest somewhere and a plan was proposed to spray them at night with soapy water from a fire hose. The soapy water would have caused the birds to die from hypothermia. There was a great hue and cry over it from some animal rights group. I am all for protecting native species, (to a point), but we are talking about a dirty, destructive pest here that most of us will try to kill on sight.

One poster mentioned rodent traps to keep them out of his attic. A friend of mine at the local telephone company set some mouse traps in one of their maintenance sheds, a couple of days later found several had been sprung, no mouse, just a pair of bird legs. The neighbors started to notice their cats were having a lot of fun catching legless starlings a few days later.

 

[MossRoad]

Just be thankful they aren't crows. We have 10-20,000 that roost in this town every winter. About an hour before sunset, its kinda creepy. You'll see a line of crows 5-6 wide coming in from a couple directions for an hour solid, as far as the eye can see. They roost by the river some nights, and move a few hundred yards down or up each night. Sometimes they'll roost on an old factory, or a school, or in a park's woods. In the morning, about a half hour before sunrise until about two hours after sunrise, they fly out in steady lines back to the cornfields, big box store parking lots, landfills, etc... and do it all over again.

 

[oldballs]

Just be thankful they aren't crows. We have 10-20,000 that roost in this town every winter. About an hour before sunset, its kinda creepy. You'll see a line of crows 5-6 wide coming in from a couple directions for an hour solid, as far as the eye can see. They roost by the river some nights, and move a few hundred yards down or up each night. Sometimes they'll roost on an old factory, or a school, or in a park's woods. In the morning, about a half hour before sunrise until about two hours after sunrise, they fly out in steady lines back to the cornfields, big box store parking lots, landfills, etc... and do it all over again.

My Dad and I had many a good evening shooting such crows as they came back to their roost in the cottonwoods etc. along the Missouri River. The barrel of his 12 gauge would sizzle when the snow hit it.

Some farmers would lay dynamite into a pile of gravel inside the roost, then set it off after dark. That probably discouraged some for awhile.

 

[MossRoad]

You shoot at anything in South Bend and you'll get return fire. And a visit from the police in about 60 seconds... they have the Spotshotter system and it works really well.

 

[mapper]

Used to have a colony of crows in the woods adjoining my property, not anything like what Moss Road describes. A couple of summers ago some ravens moved in a ran the crows off. I find the ravens to be very agreeable neighbors. They will often croak a greeting to you when you go out outside.

 

[MossRoad]

No ravens around here. I saw them out in Yellowstone... they were just hanging out with the peoples, waiting to steal shiny stuff! :laughing:

 

[k0ua]

No ravens around here. I saw them out in Yellowstone... they were just hanging out with the peoples, waiting to steal shiny stuff! :laughing:

Crows will steal shiny stuff too.