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Okay now, I am not joking about this, if you have any serious infestations of pests in your trees and all other efforts fail to eradicate them, you could try keeping two or three female Muscovy ducks to do the job. In case you aren't familiar with them, female muscovies are very docile and sweet tempered home-bodies not inclined to fly away from home, but they have voracious feeding habits and will fly or climb into trees to forage.
They are a type of wood duck, not much of a dabbler by nature, so they often will roost and forage in trees, they are very adept at walking and climbing out on branches and gripping branches and trunks with both their wings and their clawed feet while they gobble up insects, caterpillars, snails, slugs or what have you. My muscovies that I used to have kept our trees and the grounds clear of tent caterpillars and other tree pests. They'll eat anything small enough for them to swallow though, so one drawback to having muscovies foraging in trees is they'll also eat tree frogs, small birds eggs or new baby nestlings out of birds nests or baby mammals (squirrels, mice, etc.) in holes in the trunk ..... or small ripe fruits like berries or small nuts if they can manage to negotiate their way out to the ends of the branches.
If necessary, they can be kept out of trees by trimming just the ends of their long flight feathers twice a year, that way they can't get enough lift to get up into trees. They would still be useful for keeping the grounds clear of pests and they are excellent egg producers.
The females are sweet, delightful, friendly birds but don't get male muscovies unless you want trouble on your place, as they are twice the size of the females, very heavy and they are aggressive, particularly rapacious (and non-selective about it) and will beat the crap out of each other and all the other birds you have on your property, including big turkeys and geese.
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We only had ducks while my wife was alive. With her unable to protect and I had to take care of her; the raccoons found their way into our protective night cages.
My wife's favorite were her Pekins. I preferred the Khaki Campbells; I had one that I had trained as a homing pigeon (not for great distances; but a few hundred feet).
Of course they are not like your Muscovy ducks. Our neighbor always had a few. We had most of the ducks; but never the Muscovy. Most of the time we had too many male Pekins which were probably almost as bad as a male Muscovy.
yes. the problem with that is that to do it properly they need to screen them against lots of other native insects to make sure they won't be introducing an even bigger problem - like what happened when Australia brought in cane toads to control beetles in sugarcane. i have higher hopes for these native fungi that have the ability to kill SLF - the studies for that should be a lot more rapid since they are native species..
Quote:
The latest research was inspired by a Cornell-led study, which showed that two fungi, Batkoa major and Beauveria bassiana, were decimating spotted lanternflies in forests near Reading. Found naturally in soil, Batkoa major and Beauveria bassiana are native fungi that cause disease in insects but are harmless to humans. https://triblive.com/local/regional/...ed-lanternfly/
better stock up on aluminum foil and netting just in case!
How about paving my whole property? Don't forget that the Asian long horned beetles will be next! In the meantime I bought an extra chainsaw two weeks ago; now I have three and two chain sharpeners!
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