Slug Trails

Slug Rampant

The slugs that damaged the potato plants a few weeks ago are not too difficult to manage.  If there are just a few, they can be picked off by hand.  If there are more, a product like Sluggo, which is biodegradable and safe to use around pets, can get rid of them.

Cindy harvested a head of lettuce the other day and found three slugs on the leaves.  Ugh.

We took those lettuce leaves out and put them under the bird feeder to provide a little treat for the ground feeder birds, especially the Brown Towhees, the Spotted Towhees and the California Thrashers.  We don't know who got the slugs, but the next morning both the slugs and the lettuce leaves were completely gone, so somebody cleaned it up for us.

One of the old traditional methods of getting rid of slugs and snails is to put some beer out in a shallow dish; the slugs crawl in, drink the beer and drown.  End of slugs.

However, we won't be using that method for two reasons:  first, we prefer to drink the beer ourselves, and second, we don't even want to think how much damage a pack of drunken California Ground Squirrels could do to the garden.

UC Integrated Pest Management Pest Notes--Slugs and Snails

California Thrasher

We've also been enjoying the sight of two California Thrashers under our bird feeder the past couple of days.  These gray birds with long, graceful tail feathers are very shy birds who normally flee at the slightest sound or movement, so we have to watch them from inside the house, which means I can't get a decent picture of them.   They can fly but seem to prefer running into the shrubbery for shelter.

Usually there's only one Thrasher; since they are ground feeders, the Thrasher cleans up the seed the sparrows, House Finches and Lesser Goldfinches drop out of the feeders.  The Thrasher also likes the suet feeder, attacking it vigorously with its long, curved beak.

Recently there have been two Thrashers under the feeders.   One of them seems a bit larger and rounder than the other bird, but the smaller bird is the one who gathers the seed and suet and feeds the other.  We can't figure out if the rounder bird is a pregnant female being fed by the male, or if it's a chick being fed by the mother.

We'll probably never know the answer to that, but it's fun to watch these shy birds.