Blackbird and slugs

[Birdwatchers]

There is a female blackbird in my garden who keeps catching slugs, and then she will hold them in her beak and drag them back and forth accross a stone patio slab for a good few minutes. What is this for? To soften them up? I feel sorry for the poor slugs being dragged around like that before being eaten! Sometimes she rolls them around in the pile of seed I leave out on the floor and they get coated in them- don't know if this is deliberate or not!

[aeshna5]

I've observed this in my garden too + my impression was that she was trying to remove some of the mucous + with larger slugs to break them into smaller "bite"- sized pieces.

[sunnydale]

I watched a male blackbird wrestling with a worm this morning. Quite a long & fat juicy one too! (the worm, not the Blackbird!)

The worm ended up in about half a dozen bite size chunks, the last of which the blackbird left behind! It was still wriggling for quite a while afterwards, until a female came along and polished it off!

Tracey

[ChrisJB]

Originally Posted by aeshna5

I've observed this in my garden too + my impression was that she was trying to remove some of the mucous + with larger slugs to break them into smaller "bite"- sized pieces.

I've seen this too and I agree. It seems pretty apparent that they are trying to remove some of the mucus. They give them a good thrashing about sometimes.

Chris

[Bobby D]

I have also observed this and like our friends posting above believe it to be mainly to remove the mucus I would imagine this would improve the taste quite a bit.As to breaking worms etc into smaller pieces no different to us using a knife and fork LOL