Feeding the enemy

[Rox]

There has been a pair of Fiscal Shrikes living in the neighbourhood since we moved in and they have ignored my birds for almost 2 years now. Until recently...

So what does the bunny-hugger in me do? Instead of my first reaction of going and buying a pellet gun... I decide to feed it! My theory is that since I haven't seen the hen around and dad is bombing my aviaries, they must be brooding (well, I like to think so anyways, lol).

They now get dried mealworms twice a day and thankfully are not hassling my birds so much anymore. Just in case though, all food dishes etc have been moved off the sides of the aviary's and the winter side panelling has gone up as well, which helps.

They can be deadly to aviary birds and a complete pain but I do find them beautiful







Yes, even the garden birds are spoilt rotten!



The wagtails aren't shy either



Note that I was sitting about 4m away from them in front of my aviary. They are quite at home

[saulosirds]

Rox

Why work harder when you can work smarter!! Brilliant idea Roxanne.

Rob

[Perfex]

That's a great story, and I love the pictures. The shrikes eat small snakes and mice don't they? So I guess it's a good thing to encourage them.

[Colt]

An elegant solution for an elegant bird. If it doesn't work in the long run through, here's a quote of mine from another thread...

Took me forever to find/remember what this was but we carried them at our pet store. This should be pretty effective if you could get several and mount them in an array around the aviary so that the zebras don't set off the infra-red sensors but the predatory birds do.

The product is called:

Contech CRO101 Scarecrow Motion Activated Sprinkler

It's available online from a lot of retailers. The reviews look good for it online. 4 1/2 out of 5 stars on Amazon and over 2000 reviews. There are videos, etc available when performing a Google search. This might be worth a try.

Edited to add: Some of the reviews literally had me laughing out loud at work. I never thought about you needing to turn it off before you approached the aviary as it would spray you too. Haha

It might come in handy for discouraging them when they are really bothering your birds.

[monotwine]

Shrikes are tenacious. I've had to bird net my aviary. Yip it is quite funny. Mesh to keep my birds in and netting to keep the shrikes out!

They can do major damage quickly, but they are only doing what they do best. Not sure what feeding will do, either encourage them to breed and hang around more or be satisfied with what you offer.... time will tell.

Love the wagtail though! They are adorable and I have fond memories of them as a child. A pair used to breed in the hanging basket above my Grans wash room on the patio. They get tame and help keep insects out the garden.

Lovely photos too!

[Rox]

Haha, yeah.. I'm not quite convinced that this was my most intelligent idea ever but so far so good. Luckily they are extremely territorial, so there is only the 1 pair in the neighborhood for now.

Michelle,
They eat pretty much anything that is small enough for them to catch. I have various corpses of unknown origin which are currently hanging in the trees. They like to hang and dry their food for snacking on later. It's rather gross actually, hence the name 'butcher bird'.

Colt
Thanks for the link, very useful and good to know about if the need arises!

[Sally]

They eat pretty much anything that is small enough for them to catch. I have various corpses of unknown origin which are currently hanging in the trees. They like to hang and dry their food for snacking on later. It's rather gross actually, hence the name 'butcher bird'.

So interesting! I had not heard this, but how clever of them.