Snails and Slugs

It is probably too dramatic to describe the quantity of snails and slugs in the garden last year and now as of plague proportions but it's been pretty near to that.  After the amount of damage last year and after having resorted to slug pellets (which I really hate using because I don't really like killing anything - apart from wasps) I thought that the weather conditions which led to the large numbers were so different this year that things might have changed. Not at all.

A couple of weeks ago some Redwings popped in on their migratory route and in a few minutes two of them had demolished a lot of slugs in the grass at the back of the house.

 

However what has really puzzled me is the fact that snails always go upwards when it gets very wet. I recall them being collected in the rain when they crawled up the houses in Italy. So finding this one having a drink in the pond was one thing:

 But following this snail trail and finding one in the stream was quite another:

 

  Anyway a couple of days ago I decided to have a snail hunt and this was my haul:

Since then it's only been about half a dozen a day. I'm hoping that I can keep them under control this year.

Problems With Pests

Last year I got a bit obsessed with the pigeons which deposit so much poo all over my roof and dominate the garden. This year the number is about 30 and it's becoming a serious problem. Last night when I went up the ladder to clear the Study roof (not having done so for about 2 weeks) I was astonished, not just at the amount of poo there was up there but also by the difficulty I had removing it. There are two sorts. That which is like small pellets and rolls around in the wind just causing considerable irritation. Then there is the sort that sticks like cement to the polycarbonate. I couldn't reach it all with a broom so I will have to go up onto the roof and attack it from that angle. Of course the stuff which is stuck to the polycarbonate will only come off with the power washer so I'll have to lug that up the ladder and and across the roof. What a chore.

I decided this morning that something would have to be done. So I Googled the problem. The first site I looked at looked promising: Jones and Son, Pigeon Spike Manufacturers. So I'm obviously not the only one with the problem!

What I just loved about their website - and that which prompted this posting - was the statement that "You can ask us a bird spike question here, we will get back to you within two hours, test us. If we fail we will send you a large bar of chocolate."