Myna problem

The Indian Myna Acridotheres tristis is a significant feral pest in Australia, particularly in cities and towns, where they are regarded as the "rats of the sky". Nesting in roof cavities, or any hollow in buildings, their nesting habits encourage lice and the raucous calls drive people to distraction. We are fortunate that we don't have them in any numbers but we do have a pair that frequent an area near our proprty entrance. This year they have been very busy trying to nest in our letter box.

 So every day we are removing nesting material and at times eggs (so far 5 ) but they are undetered and every day back rebuilding at the nest site.

They have beautiful blue eggs (not their nest)

 A pity to take their eggs, (which the lace monitors enjoy) but it is a better action than trying to reduce their numbers by capturing and euthanaising the adult birds.

For us the main problem is that they are aggressive competitors for nesting hollows used by native birds such as rosellas, lorrikeets and even kookaburras have difficulty stopping the mynas taking their nest sites.

They are very wary and it has taken some time for me to get a photo as as soon as they sight something that is a possible threat they fly off a distance well away from the nest site, in this case our letterbox.

Originally they were brought to Australia as a way of combating insect pests in the sugar cane fields of Queensland, but like so many of these early attempts to use predators to control problem pests, it was not much of a suiccess and created more problems than it solved.