Some Observations on Birds Raiding Rice Fields in Kilosa District, Tanganyika Territory

Abstract

Anyone who has been in a rice growing area when the rice is beginning to head and set grain will not have failed to come rapidly to the conclusion that birds are an important economic pest of the rice crop. This will have been impressed upon them by the number of natives who sit in their small rice fields from dawn to dusk, halloaing, cracking whips, or throwing mud pellets at the flocks of birds which are constantly in flight over the fields. For some two months of the year it is a full time occupation for any rice growing native to guard his crop against these marauding flocks, so that in a rice area the air is filled with a constant shouting and screaming as a flock approaches a series of shambas, to be scared to another area. there to give rise to further frenzied screams or whip cracking. It will be realized that the loss to the native is thus twofold: direct in regard to the grain actually eaten, and indirect in the hours of his time which must be spent in attempting to drive off the birds from the fields, hours which, if they could be saved, might be used in the planting and taking care of other crops. It is often stated that natives are on the average lazy, the areas of crops which they plant being considered much less than their strength would warrant. This may be true in many cases, but there must be taken into account such inroads into their time and strength as the scaring of birds, and the protection of their cultivations from game, which entails constant sleep~ less nights in their small huts among their crops. Under ideal conditions the native should be able to produce considerably more, in many cases even under present conditions but he is working against large odds in most areas.