Mannequin heads creep out crows and individuals
If you are traveling around Japan's countryside at the end of summer time, you shouldn't be alarmed if you notice a lot of creepy mannequin heads looking to you in the fields.
They are for that wild birds.
Dennis Doucet, a Canadian professional photographer who's resided in Kobe, Japan, for 26 years, was out trying to find egrets and herons within the grain paddies near his neighborhood earlier this year as he spotted the spooky heads.
The result is macabre, he states, especially during the night, once the heads catch the sunshine in the passing cars.
"The sudden appearance of the items appear like bodiless, zombie heads floating within the darkness can provide one quite the scare," Doucet writes on CNN iReport.
"Also, because the heads become moldy or bleached through the sun, they become much more frightening. Most (non-farming) Japanese appear to agree the heads are most likely more frightening to humans rather than the unwanted pests you have used them to stay away!"
Japanese scarecrows, known as "kakashi," occupy a storied history in farming culture, with lots of legends surrounding their use within the grain fields.
Within their latest incarnation, Japanese maqui berry farmers take mannequin heads remaining from hairstylists and only make existence-sized scarecrows or just impale them on stays with discourage sparrows, Doucet learned from locals.
"The heads are existence-sized and incredibly realistic," Doucet writes. "The 'hair' is permanently applied, to ensure that when the hair continues to be cut, the mind will be useless towards the original owner."
Kensuke Okada, a professor in the College of Tokyo's Worldwide Enter in Farming Development Studies, states scarecrows are "considered to be an ineffective method for safeguard the crops from wild birds, nor it's broadly practiced in Japan."
But Doucet visited two maqui berry farmers who was adamant they have found scarecrows is the best technique for repelling nervous sparrows, lacking air cannons, that are so loud they make an annoyance for neighbors.
Driving round the area, he saw the mannequin heads in a minimum of twelve different paddies in various areas.
One large land owner, a 15th-generation player, stated he began while using mannequins about 5 years ago, when certainly one of his part-time workers was studying to become a hair stylist.
"He stated the timing of utilizing the heads was the important thing.
"He'd place them out just time once the grain involved to become harvested -- this is time of the very most crop damage by sparrows. He strongly supported the potency of the mannequin kakashi."
Lee Chapman, another Tokyo, japan professional photographer that has photographed many mannequin scarecrows through the years, "in various clothing and positions," states he's observed they merely emerge in mid- to late-August to safeguard the grain that's nearing harvest.
Once harvesting starts, they are packed away until the year after.
