The Good Life
Living on a block means sharing it with a lot of creatures besides your livestock; some good, some bad, some pretty, some pretty ugly.
Where the wild things are & how to live with (or without) them
When I’m running around picking up poo, bathing dogs, cleaning out the duck bath, trimming hooves, and dicing up cat food, I often feel like an unpaid servant. I also share my block with other special creatures, the wild animals that choose to live here of their own free will.
While I’d like to think it’s because I’m a cool person, I know – as with all animals – it’s all about food. It can be good for your block, and sometimes bad.
In the garden & orchard
Gardening and fruit picking are often interrupted while I identify a bug or a bird’s egg. Initially, I wanted to work out if they were ‘goodies’ or ‘baddies.’ Do I squash them, or lovingly transpose them to a safe environment?
I soon realised you can’t categorise birds and bugs so easily. Everything plays a role in the ecosystem. You may not want a million aphids on your cherry tree, but a couple of dozen provides a good food source for ladybirds.
If you spray for aphids, the ladybirds starve and die, or move away. The aphids are then free to come back unmolested and multiply into the millions.
The other pollinators
There’s more than enough Apis melifera bees requiring a year-round food supply.
They make life challenging for New Zealand’s 28 native bee species, hundreds of species of moths, ‘good’ wasps, and other insects. They don’t form hives that produce honey in harvestable quantities, but they’re good pollinators too.
Why I don’t use sprays, even organic ones
For me, it’s all about balance. If a pest or disease becomes excessive, find out how to make its habitat undesirable, or how to entice and encourage its controller.
These days, I don’t use sprays, even organic ones. To me, organically dead or chemically dead is still dead. I’ve found insect life always balances out eventually. I’m amazed at the critters that have moved into my garden since I stopped trying to control things using sprays.
I’m amazed at the critters that have moved in since I stopped spraying
In pasture
Fallowing provides a lot of benefits to the soil. This is where you leave a field ungrazed through several lifecycles, usually from late autumn until late spring or early summer.
The bonus is it creates a fantastic food source and habitat for a vast range of insects, and the seeds attract birds.
When I started fallowing pasture on my block, I soon noticed an increase in birdlife: tiny finches dancing in the grass, fantails fluttering ahead of me eating the insects, swallows swooping into the pig house, and wood pigeons noisily munching on the elm tree.
Bad birds
These are mostly Aussie immigrants, such as parrots, spur-winged plovers, and magpies.
Spur-winged plovers
Plovers blew into NZ from Australia in the 1930s. That self-introduction means they’re considered natives, although legal protection was removed in 2010. They’re very raucous, and market gardeners complain that they destroy vegetable crops. There’s concern they displace other native birds, but the main problem is that they cause safety issues on airport runways.
Magpies
These were introduced to control pasture pests such as grass grub. It’s debatable how much they affect native birds, but you only need to be attacked by a territorial magpie once to have an active dislike for them.
I use a Larsen trap, a double-sided trap with a live magpie in one side to lure another into the trap. Friends have caught dozens of magpies with a Larsen trap, clearing them from the surrounding area.
However, magpies are really smart. The trap must be set perfectly first time – you’ll only get one chance to catch a bird – and don’t let them see you killing another magpie. It’s my experience they then keep clear and seem to tell all their friends.
The Waikato Regional Council website has free, step-by-step instructions on how to construct your own Larsen magpie trap.
Visit www.waikatoregion.govt.nz and search for ‘magpie trap’
Parrots
Wild eastern rosellas, galahs, and sulphurcrested cockatoos originated from pets that escaped. There are now large wild populations in many parts of NZ.
My town friends think they’re pretty, but I find their bright colours and harsh songs are discordant with our mellow and subtle native birds.
If you wake up one morning to find your walnut tree stripped bare of nuts, it was probably a passing flock of cockatoos. If you find all your baby peaches have been picked and used to play volleyball, it was probably rosellas. I’ll tolerate a wood pigeon eating all my plums overnight, but not an Aussie interloper.
You can shoot them, use bait, or a Larsen trap will work if you can catch the first call bird and are very quick and discrete with your eradication.
Possums
I don’t consider possums a pest. They’re more like free dog food and a bit of pocket money from the fur.
Possums follow trails and are easy to shoot or trap. If you have excessive numbers, it’s always more effective to liaise with your neighbours for a combined control effort.
If you have a severe problem, I’d recommend getting in touch with your local council. Many provide funding for traps, information, and other support for neighbourhood initiatives.