"Friend or Foe!"
The Openbilled Storks have been here since December last year. It is thought that as there has been so much rain further north in Africa over the past couple of years, which has resulted in their feeding grounds in the fresh water marshes being under water, that they have come looking for food.
On the Links they are our friends, having exchanged their normal diet of fresh water snails and mussels for the garden pests, the alien snails. Last week they found the snails in the garden just inside the main gate. (We don’t use snail bait on the Links.) It is an amazing sight to watch and incredible to see how, with those ungainly looking beaks, they can extract the body of a snail without breaking the shell. To do this a bird uses the sharp cutting edge at the tip of its lower mandible which severs the muscle connecting the snail to its shell.
Foe? Alas yes, they are also taking our indigenous snails which are not a nuisance in gardens.
On the Links they are our friends, having exchanged their normal diet of fresh water snails and mussels for the garden pests, the alien snails. Last week they found the snails in the garden just inside the main gate. (We don’t use snail bait on the Links.) It is an amazing sight to watch and incredible to see how, with those ungainly looking beaks, they can extract the body of a snail without breaking the shell. To do this a bird uses the sharp cutting edge at the tip of its lower mandible which severs the muscle connecting the snail to its shell.
Foe? Alas yes, they are also taking our indigenous snails which are not a nuisance in gardens.
 Empty Shells |
 Hunting Snails |
Regards,
Carol
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