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RE: [GWL]: Grackles

What about the crows?  They will kill more songbirds than the cowbird or the
grackle by a long shot.  Crows are becoming scary in my view.  In Japan they
are also becoming scary, hanging out in large groups, killing kittens,
songbirds, and generally making a mess.  They have become fearless of man
and seem to congregate in larger groups these days than I remember in the
past.  One solution is to build lots of bird houses with holes not big
enough for cowbirds, grackles, and such.  I had 11 spread around a quarter
acre suburban plot.  Of course some of song bird reductions are a function
of the loss oif habitat at the winter end in South America and Central
America.
I still push for the dirty dozen - the 12 species of songbirds found
throughout suburban and even urban U.S. and all control pest insects.
Anyone want to venture who makes the list?  The starling is one of them
because they are here and they are one of the few birds that will eat adult
Japanese beetles and they will also eat slugs.  A crowd of starlings on a
lawn in June or July tells me I have a serious grub problem in my lawn.
The easy ones are the chickadee, nuthatch, and titmouse.  Then there is the
robin, the cardinal, mockingbird, and the catbird.  Then the finches,
flycatchers, woodpeckers, and wrens.  That leaves the lowly sparrow that
will feed insects to three broods of young each year.  Most of these birds
respond to feeders and suet and over half of them will use a birdhouse if it
properly designed and hung.  Only the catbirds, flycatchers and wrens
migrate, and they only go south; not to South America.  The pretty boys -
the hummers, warblers, bluebirds, orioles, and others are really pretty but
are hard to attract and don't eat many of your insects.  I'll stick with the
dirty dozen and a pull in some hummers with a feeder.  I get sound and color
all year, and few pest insects in my garden.

Go Dirty Dozen!

Jeff

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