Thread: Trapping Myna Birds

Interesting.

We have a wide range of resident birds, particularly tuis, kereru, welcome swallows, yellowhammers, sparrows, kotare, Californian quails, blackbirds & thrushes, piwakawaka, chaffinch, pheasants, pukekos, silvereyes... others... and mynas, starlings and magpies.

The most recent arrival is the Australian Eastern Rosella, which are rapidly breeding up into quite significant flocks, and everything I have read about this suggests they will soon be given pest status by Environment Waikato. (I believe they are already a pest in greater Auckland.) We saw them for the very first time in the valley where we hunt in western Ruapehu this past Christmas.

The only bird that I actively prosecute is the magpie as to be honest I’ve never really been bothered by the mynas, and they don’t appear to have any effect on the prospects of other bird species, on our block at least. They are quite irritating though, at 4.30 a.m. in summer. I have watched a magpie raiding nests in our one small native plantation in the garden, and stealing tui hatchlings, which at the time made me very cross (and I didn’t realise how rare it is to actually observe that). But the mynas seem to hang out with the other species without too many problems, going by the prolific numbers of other birds at least.

Just my observations on our property and I fully understand that elsewhere mynas are excessive and need to be thinned out.