Kitchen Garden Forum

We find many empty snail shells in our garden - totally cleaned out.
I would love to know what winkles them out but can't find anything on the web.
I know birds break the shells to get to the soft bodies inside but these shs are in tact. We have a colony of frogs in our garden, have seen woodmice and have visits from hedgehogs so I would suspect one of these - maybe more likely to be hedgehogs, (I'm not sure frogs can winkle although we do have loads of them) but I can't find any confirmation.
Any wildlife expert out there who could solve the who dunnit?

Hi glallotments,

Could it be glow worms? The larval stage feast on slugs and snails. They inject them and suck the juices out Nice
Here's a link to them
http://www.kendall-bioresearch.co.uk/lamp.htm

Hi Gallotments,
The culprit will be a Song Thrush. Although they are famous for using an anvil for extracting snails from their shell by smashing the shell it is not always the case. If the snail is out of its shell feeding then the Song Thrush can shake the snail out of it's shell without having to resort in smashing it.
JB.

I do hope it is a song thrush although this may not be likely as I haven't seen any in the garden. We do have lots of blackbirds. I should have also said that some are found in a cold frame which is covered in netting.

Frogs are found in there too but I just don't know if they can winkle snails out

Hi Glallotments,
If the snail is feeding and the body is showing then Blackbirds and even Robins will have a crack at them but to my knowledge neither has the ingenuity to smash the shell. This is the habit of only the Song Thrush.
JB.