I think most people have trouble with birds stealing the sphagnum moss from the bog, I also think birds did it with my bog (but I never watched it). But I sometimes see that the sphagnum is outside and the soil dig up. Another problem are snails, perhaps you have an advice for that. I sometimes see holes in Sarracenia plants in my bog. A good advice against birds is also ... get cats :) Well I have two but they are inside at night and most of the day,so they won't help ;)
Hot chillies enthusiast and grower, here (and newbie carnivorous plant grower, this is my third spring). Really sorry to bring you bad news, but birds have a modified vanilloid receptor to which capsaicin, the compound that give hot peppers the hotness, doesn't bind. Long story short: they don't feel the pain, just the taste, that's why birds are the first vector of peppers' seed dispersal and once the learn that peppers tastes good, they get ravenous and you need birds netting for peppers too 😅 It's especially true for small to tiny pepper fruits, every one smaller than a cherry that they can swallow in one gulp, but they like to peck bigger fruits too if they manage to get a stable positon to do so. Then they shit seed here and there. For some wild peppers species is supposed that the digerent tracts of birds do a real "chemical scarification" of the seeds, improving germination. Pepper pray should work to some degree with mammals, but in the end it depends on the single individual: it's not impossible to found a rat or a deer that acquire a sort of tolerance for the hotness, or maybe come to like it (as some humans do 😊).
I think most people have trouble with birds stealing the sphagnum moss from the bog, I also think birds did it with my bog (but I never watched it). But I sometimes see that the sphagnum is outside and the soil dig up. Another problem are snails, perhaps you have an advice for that. I sometimes see holes in Sarracenia plants in my bog.
A good advice against birds is also ... get cats :) Well I have two but they are inside at night and most of the day,so they won't help ;)
Hot chillies enthusiast and grower, here (and newbie carnivorous plant grower, this is my third spring).
Really sorry to bring you bad news, but birds have a modified vanilloid receptor to which capsaicin, the compound that give hot peppers the hotness, doesn't bind.
Long story short: they don't feel the pain, just the taste, that's why birds are the first vector of peppers' seed dispersal and once the learn that peppers tastes good, they get ravenous and you need birds netting for peppers too 😅
It's especially true for small to tiny pepper fruits, every one smaller than a cherry that they can swallow in one gulp, but they like to peck bigger fruits too if they manage to get a stable positon to do so.
Then they shit seed here and there. For some wild peppers species is supposed that the digerent tracts of birds do a real "chemical scarification" of the seeds, improving germination.
Pepper pray should work to some degree with mammals, but in the end it depends on the single individual: it's not impossible to found a rat or a deer that acquire a sort of tolerance for the hotness, or maybe come to like it (as some humans do 😊).
Found this out as soon as I posted this (hence the edit in the description). Thanks for the comment!
Are there any concerns about the 2 different types of cicadas braking ground currently and or soon in many parts of the country?
Cicadas don't have mouths in their mature flying stage. Not much a concern for Carnivorous Plants!