Bird Scares

Rice is grown everywhere on Bali. Harvested by hand and locally consumed, rice is part of every meal. To keep the birds off the ripening grain, the farmers use various scares including ingenious little wind-powered noisemekers featured in this recording. Rice fields typically have a little shelter for the farmer to guard the field. Strings radiate out from the shelter to noisemakers, which the farmer shakes when birds land. Often, the farmer has to resort to yelling and waving his hands.

There are lovely terraced fields everywhere. We walked through these fields on our way from the villa where we stayed in to the town of Ubud. The mountains in the distance are the peaks of Batukau, one of Bali's three major volcanoes.