Grazing sparrows for soil health

[SD51555]

I saw an absolute bonanza of song birds working overtime on my Japanese millet residue this weekend. I used AI to run back some numbers on Japanese millet seed yield per acre, how many pounds of seed out there, and how many sparrows it could feed for 30 days between snow melt and green up.

I figure if they can use it all in 30 days, I’d earn 720 lbs/ac of liquid songbird manure. That should be a good starter for my winter triticale. Also found a good earthworm pop when digging holes for elderberry bushes.

The winter trit is coming, so the birds need to hurry before it’s too deep to reach.

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[Native Hunter]

When I bushhog, it looks like the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds swarming around the tractor. Except it is swallows instead of gulls.

 

[SwampCat]

When I bush hog, it is cattle egrets - they just show up - how do they know. Seen some pretty good fights over a cotton rat



And Mississippi Kites - they scare me a little. Worry me they are going to miscalculate a little and hit me upside the head. It would kill you they are going so fast

 

[Turkey Creek]

I used to think the same thing about damn seagulls! They would show up out of nowhere and we are a damn long way from a ocean/sea!! That was back when disking was a Spring time activity on a lot of farms, with no-till very little disking anymore.

 

[Telemark]

I got harassed by a hawk a year or two ago. Scared the crap out of me.