Redirected from Banishing crows from a field
Modern scarecrows no longer take a human shape. On California farmland, highly reflective mylar ribbons are tied to the plants to create shimmers from the sun.
The scarecrow was commonly used in the United States in the 19th century, as shown by its presence in the L. Frank Baum tale The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as one of the main protagonists. The Scarecrow in that story, was looking for brains from the Great Wizard.
Another animated scarecrow from children's fiction was Worzel Gummidge, who first appeared in series of novels by Barbara Euphan Todd in the 1930s, and later in a popular television adaptation.
Not only do crows feed on recently cast seed, they also gather nightly, starting with groups of a half dozen which then unite to form a group of 20 to 30 and so on until the flock is quite large and noisy. It is their habit to return to the same place each night. Thus, it is in the interest of farmers, gardeners, and homeowners to move them along (to make them someone else's problem).
The 1881 Household Cyclopedia gives the following advice:
Crows can be a problem in Spring gardens. They can work down a row pulling up recently sprouted corn to eat the remaining seed/seedlings. In the southern Appalachians another common method of scaring off crows was use of a dead crow hung upside down from a pole.
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