Yes, when I grew up other thrushes seemed as common as blackbirds. Now I see them in parks, but rarely. All of our six types of thrush are in crashing decline, except the blackbird. Mostly from habitat loss. Sad days.
I see blackbirds in my garden. I put out mealworms for them, which they love. Most evenings there will be one perched on top of my rose arch, singing his little heart out in thanks for the day
What you need to bear in mind that slug pellets actually attract more slugs... thats how they work.
I can't say that I've ever noticed that to be the case @IanC63, but snails are the main issue for me. Can you elaborate on why pellets attract more slugs? I have been googling away but I can't find anything.
I tend to agree Ian, about predators not doing a fantastic job. I have a wildlife pond, and have frogs and toads in my garden. I see hedgehog poo on the grass although I haven't set eyes on the elusive creature yet... but my garden is TEEMING with snails and slugs (mainly snails - so nematodes aren't going to work for me). In my flower garden I am constantly learning what will survive (recent experiment with canterbury bells was a disaster) but I do grow veggies too and would like, just once, to have some salads and courgettes. I think I have been guilty of planting out less-than-robust specimens in the past so I'm trying to focus on really healthy, decent sized plants before they go out this year. My salads are going to have a tiny sprinkling of blue pellets but well netted and will pick up the corpses early every morning so hopefully nothing else gets poisoned. Can't really net courgettes so I think I'll try beer traps again.
Good luck with the earwigs - the only place I find them is under the saucer of mealworms on my bird table
I can believe that a wilder garden, mostly of certain perennials will do better than a garden of mostly annuals. I'm watching long my standing perennials like sweetpeas, veronica, erigeron, oregano, geraniums, verbena and osteo shoot with no problem at all. It's my new seedlings in little pots and newly planted perennials they make a slugline for. It's like they can smell the work that's gone into them and they taste the sweeter.
"The little book of slugs" from the Centre for Alternative Technology costs about £2, describes numerous eco-friendly ways to reduce slug damage, some of which are also relevant to snails, and is an entertaining read. And there's no need to pamper the slimy little b####s with real beer. I keep a big screw top jar in the kitchen containing water, sugar and yeast, with the lid loosely fitted so gas can escape. After a few days it turns into a brew that tastes disgusting to me but which the slugs drown themselves in as readily as if it were Theakston's.
Even if you do use pellets, they don't attract snails as much as they do slugs. Snails live above ground and are easy to find in daylight so manual removal is less arduous than night time slug hunts.
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Good luck with the earwigs - the only place I find them is under the saucer of mealworms on my bird table