Very interesting story. That means most “scarecrows” are useless exercises in futility... Or perhaps the crows are toying with the people that put them out...
“That means most “scarecrows” are useless exercises in futility.”
Actually I think they mostly are. I grew up on a small farm in South Carolina and we grew watermelons for market every year. We had little trouble on our place, once in a while we would find a melon damaged but we did not shoot crows or try to scare them. Believe it or not on some neighboring fields where people would sit and call them in to a shotgunner or put out firecracker ropes(a long cord which would burn slowly and set off a firecracker every few minutes) I have seen huge numbers of watermelons ruined by crows who would peck one hole in each melon just deep enough to penetrate the rind and let air into the inside which would cause the melon to rot on the vine. Very rarely was there a second hole in the same one. These were large watermelons, mostly over forty pounds, sometimes double that. The average value was fifty cents or better at the farm back in the fifties when people were happy to earn a buck and a quarter an hour at a factory job. I can state firsthand that those who made the greatest efforts to defeat the crows suffered far more damage. I still see fake Owls sold as scarecrows but I don’t think they work. Crows are certainly not afraid of Red Tailed Hawks, they will in fact chase the Hawks, I have seen that for myself. I don’t know why they would be afraid of Owls.