Pellet gun and live target practice?

Put up one of those wind catchers - the colourful kinds that whirl ribbons.

What exactly are these things eating? I've never seen starlings eat hens & chicks and sedums. Are these things flowering? Perhaps remove the seedheads will help.

Ianna

Thanks Ianna -- I was thinking something like you suggest, just need to find a place to get some.

The starlings aren't eating any part of the plants -- they simply seem to enjoy destroying them.
If they can, they pull out the entire plant, with roots (I just re-plant them again.... about half-a-dozen times now), or if they can't, they just rip off pieces of it, until there is little left.

I watched them whack away at the things, like their life depended on it.
Even stranger, they only attack the ones in the back yard, not the ones in the front yard (PS. the ones in the back yard are just transplants from the front yard -- no difference, other than being smaller...).

Bizarre.

very bizarre.

Hence the term 'bird brain'

This year a robin (or more than one, it was hard to tell) attacked our windows every day for months. (S)he (or they) would be on the ground, suddenly fly up and attack the window, scratching and pecking the glass as they slid down the pane (like in a cartoon). Over and over again until you chased it away. Then it would be another window. Chase it away. Etc

We tried various things like taking all the objects off the sills, closing the curtains and even removing shiny objects form the room. Nada, the crazy behaviour was nary diminshed.

A couple of weeks ago it started to taper off and I can't remember an occurance for the last several days so maybe the attacks are over (at least for this year;-)

I would use some mesh or wire frames to protect your plants until the birds lose interest.

Cheers,
MG

Here is a link that might be useful: Our website

There has to be a resaon the Starlings are reacting this way. Do you know where the nest is? It could be close enough that if these are new transplant to the area they see them as a threat since they were not there when they chose their nesting place.

Another reason is that birds will uproot plants to make bugs and worms surface and so provide them with food. Starlings do this as do Robins. I have a real problem with Juncos doing this in my pot ghetto where I keep lots of seedlings until they are big enough to place in the ground. I place wire baskets on top of them until the Juncos are no longer interested which is usually just a few days.

I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with nesting.
There are other plants that weren't there before, and they aren't attacking those (dwarf mugo pines, for example).
They were also attacking a Rudolphiana -- I guess it looked like good nest-building material to them.
But a nest made of sempervivums ? ...I don't think so.