Garden scarecrow is no longer needed - farmers scare away birds with lasers

Take a look around - the world is changing right before our eyes. More recently, about 10 years ago, we could not even imagine that someday we would have smartphones with fast Internet, and drones with professional cameras would fly in the sky. And after all, this is far from all that we see, because somewhere outside the city, on farmers' territories, high technologies are also being introduced. Remember, scarecrows dressed in old clothes were standing in the gardens of our grandparents? So, now you can forget about them, because they were replaced by laser systems that repel birds much better.

Americans call the scarecrow “Scarecrow”, which literally can be translated as “scare the raven”

At least the “laser” scarecrows are mounted onfields of the University of the American state of Rhode Island. They were created by Professor Rebecca Brown and tested for three years. She admits that this is far from a new technology and similar installations have been used on trading floors and stadiums for more than 20 years, but they were first used for agricultural purposes. They not only scare away starlings, blackbirds and other birds, but protect the corn crop from them.

Rebecca Brown checks the operation of the "laser" scarecrow

According to the results of a Cornell studyUniversity, about 16% of the crops of sweet corn in the US state of New York are destroyed by birds. Because of the birds, the country is losing a huge amount of money, because the United States is a leader in the supply of corn. For example, in 2014, it exported over 49 million tons of plants to other countries.

It is noteworthy that the light not only scares away the birds, but can also kill them.

What is corn for?

In regions such as Mexico, South America andAfrica corn is almost a staple food. It makes starch, oil and even raw materials for alcoholic beverages. Corn, by the way, is used to create whiskey - do you remember the news about how the warehouse of the beverage manufacturer Jim Beam burned down in the USA? Yes, we are talking about the very situation when spilled alcohol killed a bunch of fish and caused great harm to nature.

In cooking, corn syrup is used as a thickener and sweetener.

Corn is also used for makingsweet syrup, which is added to many confectionery products. As you can see, this plant plays a huge role in our life and it would be very disappointing to lose it due to birds. We can say that if the corn crop remained intact, our life would literally be sweeter.

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How to scare away birds?

Desiring to protect the wheat crop, farmers resortedto the weirdest scare methods. In addition to the usual stuffed animals, dressed in old clothes, they tried to use bright balloons and even those inflatable little men who stand at shopping centers and attract people's attention, while frightening birds away.

Dancing dolls in the corn fields, it must be a lot of fun

But all these methods fade against the background of the laserinstallation, which alternately illuminates everything that is within a radius of 185 meters from it. Scientists still do not understand why birds are afraid of green radiation, but there is a result and it suits them perfectly.

We think that birds perceive the laser assolid object from which they need to fly away. But we can’t say anything for sure - we don’t have the opportunity to get into the bird’s head and see what happens there? - shared Rebecca Brown.

It is known that birds only respond tomoving light, and if the source is stationary - they simply ignore it. It is also very important that the laser shines flush with the tops of the corn stalks, so the installation height can be manually adjusted.