tomatofamily

Last Sunday at Long Valley, we saw and took pictures of these - a group of munia eating the newly grown sprouts planted by the farmers even with the CD hanging there and a scarecrow.  It seems that the farmers have no better coping mechanism for getting the birds away (I did see one case in Fanling, a Chinese Bulbul was hung over a small farming area in attempt to scare the other birds away; I told the owner of the land to let go the bird; otherwise...).  I want to see if there are in this society any experts on this matter, to help the farmers to cope with that and to help them to live happily with the birds. I bet AFCD has done something like that before and it does not seem working.

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It seems to be that there are  plenty other food for munia:

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[ Last edited by tomatofamily at 7/04/2011 20:34 ]

wcaptain

The only option is physically protected the fields, i.e. enclosed the area with bird-friendly nets. They will solve the problem completely but most farmers do not like it due to the cost problem.

Hanging bird deterrent agents, e.g. hanging plastic falcons and a ballon with big eye as pattern, could reduce the severity of the problem, but cannot solve the problem.

Alternatively, we could play calls of raptors around the field regularly. It may scare the birds but they may use to it subsequently.

There are plenty of bird deterrent agents on the web. (available to order online). Google search may help.