I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a finch or any other kind of bird catch and eat a japanese beetle. If the doggone things taste like they smell I can’t imagine anything wanting to eat them.
That said, I’ve got a ton of finches that live around our property, and if they’ve learned to eat the stinking things it could explain why I’m no longer overrun with them.
Yeah, japanese beetles have a stench about them.
We have June beetle ‘hatches’ after rains on occasion. We have a crow family that hangs around our place & they seem to like eating June beetles. The crows are on the ground, hopping after the bugs, trying to catch them, which is pretty comical to watch.
June beetles (we get the green ones) are large, scarab type beetles so they would be pretty “crunchy” & I cannot imagine they would be very tasty, but then I am not a crow!
Our chickens will sometimes eat stink bugs and Japanese beetles. They swallow them VERY fast.