Slugs, Snails and Squirrels

I want to write about slugs and snails but little squirrel took my interest and attention for a solid one hour.

Let me finish that first.

I knew there was a batch of new squirrels on the roof under the ceiling and the mother feeding them.

I could hear suckling young ones.

I encourage squirrels since they invariably chase the mice.

One of the young ones today sensed the ripe palm seeds and with some trial and error found it and started feeding.

He came to a point where he could see me while feeding.

Having noticed that there was no danger from me it continued feeding but made sure that he is behind the tree trunk and only the head peeping at intervals to see my actions and movements.

I just stay absolutely still.

After about 15 minutes he got enough courage to feed with the head down and only the legs holding on to the branch.

I thought of taking a photo but decided not to BUT to count how many seeds it eats.

Well it was more than 10 and stop.counting and I let it enjoy the feast.

I was thinking (I am not a yogi), If I try eating upside down like a squirrel, what my physiological reactions would be to prevent my morning tea coming down my nose.

I think that was the first physiological (eating in upside down posture with a full tommy) balance we lost having become an erect man.

So he finished the feast and could not find his way back especially because the rain has washed away his urine marks on the tree.

After several attempts he jumped to the mulberry tree that had only few fruits.

Even the jam-pera tree has no fruits.

Usually in July the tree is full of fruits and the fruits came two months early and the rain interrupted, causing the yield to be poor.

Bright sun shine is necessary for the full field and to impart sweetness to the fruits.

My analysis the global warming is creating havoc to plants and thereby food supply to the birds and other animals who are not carnivorous like man.

Now coming to slugs and snails I encourage them on our roof top garden so birds will come and feed them.

It is the supplementary food them.

The spiders they eat do not have much food value.

80 to 90% of the exotic plants I have up there had been brought thete by birds and one of those Havari Nuga trees was the tallest and that is where twitter made a nest.

Over last 15 years the rooftop garden has a natural ecosystem (except the water plants I carefully collected including beautiful lilies).

Coming to snails I saw a garden piece in the web, how to destroy them.

Apart from birds there are many simple things one can do to prevent population explosion but those common sense tips I would not elaborate here.

Now my experience with snails is they never eat young leaves or normal leaves.

They only eat rotten leaves and I do not have to bother removing rotten leaves of water plants and lilies.

It is a myth that snails and slugs do damage to plants.

I do not think so.

They do not have teeth.

Additionally they do not have advanced enzyme systems to digest them.

All healthy leaves except some vegetables which are commercially raised or selected for commercial raising, have chemical stuff poisonous to animals.

It is the bacteria that breakdown the cellulose to sugar that slugs and emails consume with other basic elements including amino acids.

They are very useful.scsvenger and do not hate these slimy guys.

They are part of our ecosystem.

Only thing I know is they are slimy and never pick them by hand and that slime will not leave your fingers even with a strong detergent.

That is their protective sheath.

It makes it easy for the birds, especially the greater coucal to swallow them in one go.

They hate water and squirt some water they move away quickly.
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For ages I have not seen the big shelled snails.

They have vanished and it is the delicacy of the greater coucal.

Now while I was doing this at least 6 varieties of birds came to feed on the palm seeds since I know them by their calls even without watching at them.

Birds hate eye contact and one should hear them rather than watch them.

Bird watching is a wrong connotation, in the scientific world.

Bird listening or hearing them should be the right way if you love them.

Do not interrupt their feeding.

They fly away.

Just plant a few fruit plants and do not look for them.

They simply form "the flying ecosystem" by themselves given about five years.

I think we live in their migration pathway.

Believe me or not Korawakka had built a nest on the Kithul Tree in front of our house and I can hear the mum feeding the young ones, now.

They are like kiwis, ground birds that lay eggs on paddy fields during dry season.

The paddy fields are filled up by developers and road masters and they have no place to lay eggs.

In another 10 years I will see their extinction from out neighbourhood like what happened to kiwis in New Zealand.