Aussie Finch Forum

I've always known it as Prairie Grass also. I no longer feed it due to an incident a couple of years ago. Had a 10 day old young Red Siskin killed by a grain of Prairie grass pierced through the crop wall. What buggars me is how on Earth the parent Red Siskin regurgitated it (about 10mm long and very pointy at both ends) to feed it to the young bird in the first place. But how ever it was, with the costliest lessons being the most vividly remembered & all that, I don't feed Prairie grass heads to my birds any more.
After many years not bothering to even try it I've just recently been feeding Plantain seedheads to my finches (at the brown stage - seed still green though) due to a local abundance and thought I'd just add a few heads to see how they go & they were stripped just as eagerly as the signal grass & winter grass heads which were offered at the same time so thats another goodie which grows in many areas.

Grass ID please, looks some sort of Mini Rye. The full plant I didnt take a photo of as it was on site it was bad enough getting out of the car and tearing a bunch of seed heads off. Looks like a smaller guinnea type grass structure with thinner stems and leaves. Growing up in the coastal Pilbara next to a burst water pipe.

Looks like rye to me.My birds love it,is a hard one to get value from the picking here though.

Gomer the seed heads are extremely small. the background of those pics is car vinyl pattern. I agree it has the same shape as Rye, do you think it could be worth growing? Seed heads were abundant on the grass clump I found but growing in constant water.

mackstaa wrote:Gomer the seed heads are extremely small. the background of those pics is car vinyl pattern. I agree it has the same shape as Rye, do you think it could be worth growing? Seed heads were abundant on the grass clump I found but growing in constant water.

Yes a second look now i know vinyl is the back ground,it is smaller.I think any edible seed for the birds and easy to harvest is worth a go.

Ok well I thought I'd add here, I grabbed some seed out of my front yard before it gets mowed over the weekend (neighbour is a grump lol) it's just a little courtyard, tiny really but I still managed to pull 6 different seeding grasses out of there for the birds today So space is not important really and weeds will grow anywhere (well they are weeds to some lol)







The birds had a feast today

1st pic.is Prairie Grass
2nd. Can't tell (poor focus)
3rd. not sure , but have seen it. Is a common lawn grass short stemmed and hard to pick any great quantity of it.
4th. Is a variety of Paspalum. The one you have grows in wet conditions and it quite edible for birds. Its cousin Paspalum dilatum should be avoided as it has a poisonous ergot (black mould) that grows on it. The plant is easily identified it grows to around a metre and the seed heads are sticky (which is unusual for grass) 5th. Is a water grass, grows in very wet areas birds love it and can be harvested all summer near creeks and ponds. But I cant find a name for it.
6th. Is winter grass common in lawns very small short stemmed grass seed hard to pick in good quantities but birds adore it. well worth the effort.

Agree with above.
Second pic looks like rye grass when it opens and is pollinating.
The 3rd and 5th *riffles through desk and bookshelf* I will identify when I find my "Grasses of SE NSW" book.
I haven't had much interest from the birds in the paspalums or water grass; didn't know about the black ergot though. Good tip.

years ago i accidently fed some ergot infected paspalum . the birds wouldn't touch it so they know. The sticky heads are a detterent as well.

mattymeischke wrote:Shark is spot on.
Brome grass on the left (aka rescuegrasss for some medicinal reason) and wild oats on the right.
All my finches take oats, and chew on the stems like we used to when we were kids (it's quite sweet to taste), but none seem especially into the Brome grass.
It doesn't open a lot more before it ripens.

Looking at the scientific name catharticus one might suspect it might act as a cathartic. That means it may speed up gut transit time aka diarrhoea although I suspect that would depends on the quantity consumed.