{"id":11068,"date":"2018-06-30T00:52:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T07:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/?p=11068"},"modified":"2018-06-29T11:17:28","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T18:17:28","slug":"home-pest-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/30\/home-pest-control\/","title":{"rendered":"Home Pest Control"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a title=\"woodchat shrike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2019\/04\/27\/spain-birds-art-in-catalonia\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1637\/25865030613_5470f7893e.jpg\" alt=\"woodchat shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"316\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ll happily confess that I&#8217;m not really one for pet birds: they&#8217;re noisy, they&#8217;re smelly, and some of them, I hear, have the disconcerting habit of outliving their human owners.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Loggerhead shrike, Arizona\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/16870398395\/in\/photolist-FpB3tF-FULjDS-GhzY4s-DqNqdm-s91zLJ-s99KTV-rGMcFR-SQ3A8G-nwW4gi-nwWbK6-g6x1xL-g6xvR4-c6U1w1-9MC2vS-85RujF-c6U1p9-c6U1dL-c6U1if-ccspKY-c6U17Y-c6TYWA-c6TYU5-c6TxJw-c6Ty6m-c6Ty3Q-c6TxRA-c6TxD7-beq342-8UGqqR-8R29az-7RuGPR-7RuLzc-iKyrbD-7zNNt9-7zFeWg-7zNYXH-7zFeJP-4Kcygk-5248J5-9Ga6Cg-91vddN-6wkfXi-6wkfNc-5H7QdF-5H7QTY-581D6h-5mbP3Z-5mfJSL-5mfJNL-57TQDH\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm8.staticflickr.com\/7613\/16870398395_6177f2fabc.jpg\" alt=\"Loggerhead shrike, Arizona\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Even if cagebirds didn&#8217;t give me the slight willies, I gravely doubt that my first choice for a domestic companion of the feathered sort would be &#8230; a shrike.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Red-backed Shrike Tuscany\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2018\/10\/31\/italy-birds-art-in-venice-the-po-delta\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/843\/41280469510_34e68f5c3b.jpg\" alt=\"Red-backed Shrike Tuscany\" width=\"500\" height=\"378\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I love shrikes, and have since I saw my first loggerheads in eastern Nebraska more than 40 years ago. Whatever the rest of the day afield has held, it is often the shrikes &#8212; common ones or rare, big ones or little &#8212; that press themselves most deeply into memory: a northern shrike chasing tree sparrows through the thickets, a great gray hounding innocent jays and magpies, red-backeds lighting up a brushy pasture, a southern gray singing from a Spanish fenceline.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"great gray shrike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2018\/09\/29\/germany-birds-art-in-berlin-brandenburg\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm6.staticflickr.com\/5340\/30739156586_549336b7fd.jpg\" alt=\"great gray shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"368\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In the house, though? Never. Of all things.<\/p>\n<p>But as so often, and always so surprisingly, I find that my tastes are not universally shared.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Lesser Gray Shrike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2019\/09\/03\/poland-birds-art-in-royal-krakow\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8148\/7349558738_81cb43961b.jpg\" alt=\"Lesser Gray Shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>In 1795, <a href=\"http:\/\/daten.digitale-sammlungen.de\/0001\/bsb00016233\/images\/index.html?seite=710\">Johann Matth\u00e4us Bechstein<\/a>, uncle of the poet and philologist and father of German ornithology, dedicated a lengthy chapter of his\u00a0<em>Stubenthiere<\/em>\u00a0to these &#8220;bold predatory birds&#8221; and their place in the fashionable bourgeois living room.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Southern gray shrike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2019\/04\/27\/spain-birds-art-in-catalonia\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/915\/43041506242_3c4a173dd3.jpg\" alt=\"Southern gray shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"287\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Like the European jay, the great gray shrike imitates many sounds. It does not quite succeed in replicating the songs of other birds, but its own flute-like note is that much more beautiful, quite similar to that of the gray parrot; it puffs out its throat like a frog&#8230;. Perhaps one might be able to teach it to speak, as it has some notes that are very like the human voice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There is one thing to be very sure of, though, as Bechstein reminds us in his account of the lesser gray shrike.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Northern Shrike\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/4498261989\/in\/photolist-8UGqqR-8R29az-7RuGPR-7RuLzc-iKyrbD-7zNNt9-7zFeWg-7zNYXH-7zFeJP-7zFeR6\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm5.staticflickr.com\/4069\/4498261989_55d41b9f11.jpg\" alt=\"Northern Shrike\" width=\"409\" height=\"377\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Letting any shrike fly around in a room with other birds in it is not appropriate, because it is likely to want to kill its comrades &#8212; if not out of hunger, then out of jealousy or bad temper, or just to prove that it can.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bloodlust notwithstanding, the male lesser gray is among the most desirable of cagebirds, &#8220;with a wondrous capacity to learn &#8230; the entire songs of other bird, among them the nightingale, the skylark &#8230; and the quail.&#8221; The woodchat, on the other hand, though its handsome plumage commends it, always mixes &#8220;its own screeching and squawking&#8221; into its imitations.<\/p>\n<p>Then as now the commonest laniid in central and western Europe, the red-backed shrike was the birdkeeper&#8217;s favorite, readily captured, handsomely plumed, and easily fed. The song of the beautiful male<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>is a combination of the songs of the goldfinch, various warblers, nightingale, thrush nightingale, robin, wren, skylark, and woodlark, mixed with only a few of the shrike&#8217;s own coarse strophes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a title=\"Red-backed Shrike\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/rickwright\/43042352182\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm1.staticflickr.com\/916\/43042352182_b756fc74da.jpg\" alt=\"Red-backed Shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"330\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Best of all, though,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>if you place the shrike in a room infested with flies, he will quickly clear them out. He catches them most easily in flight; if you then stick a few pins into a twig, he impales the flies with an odd movement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;m still not convinced.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Southern gray shrike\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ventbird.com\/birding-tour\/2019\/04\/27\/spain-birds-art-in-catalonia\" data-flickr-embed=\"true\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm2.staticflickr.com\/1784\/41281539200_05567906be.jpg\" alt=\"Southern gray shrike\" width=\"500\" height=\"341\" \/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ll happily confess that I&#8217;m not really one for pet birds: they&#8217;re noisy, they&#8217;re smelly, and some of them, I hear, have the disconcerting habit of outliving their human owners. Even if cagebirds didn&#8217;t give me the slight willies, I gravely doubt that my first choice for a domestic companion of the feathered sort would &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/30\/home-pest-control\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Home Pest Control&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[667,464,449,447,461],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11068"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11069,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11068\/revisions\/11069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/birdaz.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}