They're not to everyone's tastes and some gardeners might consider them their worst enemies. I know one of my neighbours hates them with a passion. He patrols his lawn and plucks the dandelion flowers from their stalks before disposing of them carefully. For slugs, he has devised an even more ruthless strategy: he collects them in a bucket and empties the hapless contents onto the road outside our houses so that they get run over!I see slugs and dandelions differently. Goldfinches adore dandelion seeds, and for me that's enough to make me look upon them favourably.
Because of the cheerful yellow flowers (which I secretly like), I can stand at the kitchen window as some of my favourite birds feed just a few feet away. They soon munch their way through a dandelion head and leave a scattering of down on the grass - minus the seeds. It's unquestionable that slugs are unpleasant creatures, but I've forgiven them this year. The reason? A pair of song thrushes has built a nest in my (slug-hating) neighbour's garden. When I look out of the window, there's often a beautifully-spotted thrush hopping across the lawn with a beak crammed full of tiny slugs in the manner of a puffin carrying sand-eels. I'm proud that my slug-filled garden is keeping song thrush chicks fed, and I like watching the goldfinches making short work of the dandelions. Rather than worrying about how to get rid of these pests, I'm hoping that the birds will do the hard work for me...
The goldfinches in my garden are certainly not shy. They come for sunflower hearts all day and some will come to a feeder with black sunflower seeds less than a foot from my window. They are quite aggressive and will not move for a sparrow or greenfinch.
In contrast coal tits come only for black sunflower seeds and stay for only a few seconds.
Birds eating slugs seems to be a fairly recent development in my garden. It seemed to start during a drought a few years ago when there were no worms to be found for some weeks. Since then blackbirds, robins and song thrushes eat them, but only small ones. I always wondered why thrushes were said not to eat them but were prepared to break open snails.
I have been using copper tape to protect my troughs from slugs for a couple of years. I have now started using slugrings to protect some of their favourite plants. For the first time I have delphiniums in flower this year.