This document discusses various bird pests that damage agricultural crops in India. It describes the major bird species like crows, sparrows, parrots, mynas, and pigeons, and the crops they affect like wheat, maize, fruits. For each bird, it covers details like distribution, life cycle, type of damage caused, and management methods. Common management approaches discussed are trapping using nets or sticky substances, using poisoned baits, scaring devices that produce loud sounds through drums, firecrackers, or acetylene exploders. Covering crops with nets is also mentioned.

1. ENTO 532
Non-insect Pests of Field Crops
• Submitted to:-
Dr.Anil Kumar Vyas
Department of Entomology
RCA, MPUAT, Udaipur
• Submitted By:-
Vinit Kumar Meena
Ph.D. Horticulture
Department of Horticulture
RCA, MPUAT, Udaipur

2. Non insect pests birds
• Birds causing damage to various agricultural
crop.
• A number of birds feed upon grains from
earheads of field crops; fruits and vegetables.
• They actually consume very little quantity but
often cause more damage than what they
actually eat.

3. Major bird species affecting
different crops.
1. Crow Corvus spp. – Damage wheat, cobs of maize, ripe fruits
of fig, mulberry.
2. The parrot Psittacula cyanocephalus cuts and feeds on
maize, jowar,bajra,wheat,barley grains and fruits such as
guava, fig, mango, pomegranate etc., (both semi ripened and
ripened fruits are cut and eat leading to fruit drop).
3. The house sparrow – Passer domesticus damages the
earheads of jowar, maize,bajra and soft and fleshy fruits such
as mulberry and fig.
4. The blue rock pigeon Columba livia eats maize,pulses and
groundnut.
5. The yellow throated sparrow causes heavy damage to wheat
and barley.

4. Crow (Corvus Splendens Vieillot)
• Distribution: Throughout India found up to about 1200mheight.

5. Life cycle
• Eggs: laid from April to August amd in North-west states
only from mid June to mid July and lay 4 to 7 eggs in
nest.These eggs light blue to greenish with dark spot.
• Adults ;greyish black in colour.
• These birds don’t breed in their first year.
• Nest are usually situated on trees,telephones poles etc. and
made by shrubs and trees branches.
• The indian koel invariably lays its eggs in crow’s nests, and
lets the crow incubate them amd raise them with its own
youngs ones.
• They are strong flyer,long distance to field and coming back
to trees roost at night.
• These are bold bird with no fear of human.

7. Damage
• Crows cause considerable damage to ripe fruits in
orchards and also ripening grains of maize and
fruits.
• The crows are particularly attracted to the grains
when they are exposed on a cob.
• They may prove a menace to the successful
growth of field crops as well as harvest of fruits.
They are often seen in flocks in maize and other
fields.
• They are also menace to groundnuts,
sorghum,other grains, chillies and fruits.

8. Management
• Acetylene explorders hve been repoted
effective against their depredationin orchards.
• Thallium sulphate baits are used for there slow
action may gives better kills.
• They can be trapped in large V-shaped traps.

9. Sparrow (Passer domesticus)
• Distribution ; all india found up to a height of about
2000 m.

10. Life cycle
• Eggs: 3 to 6 pale greenish brown mottled eggs.
• Brood throughout the year.
• Incubation period: 14 days
• Nests re large untidy ,in crevices, ventilators,
lampshades, back of pictures etc.
• They are avoid heavy forest and mostly lives
to near human beings.

12. Damage
• The flocks of sparrows is a great menace to
various field crops like Jowar, bajra, wheat,
maize, etc. mainly in the seed setting stage.
• They also threaten mulberry and many other
small sized juicy fruits and fruit buds.
• They visit the ripening fruit fields, particularly
those of wheat in the spring season, and cause
much damage both by feeding and causing the
grains to shed.

13. Management
• Eaisly traped with box traps or automatics
elevator types.
• And can be poisoned wih small grains treated
with strychnine.
• Prebait for a week in several spots. Put
poisoned bait out for 2 days on only part of
these prebait spots and then substitute with
clean grain.some of the other spots can be
baited and the cycle repeated.

14. Parrot (Psittacula spp.)
• Distrution :commom throughout India found iat height below
1200 m.

15. Life cycle
• Eggs: lays 3 to 6 white ,oval eggs.
• Breeding season: from Feb-May.
• They use debris for nesting in holes in walls
and trees without building a real nest structure.

17. Damage
• About eight species of parrots have been recorded in
India. Out of these species, Large Indian parakeet (P.
eupatria) is very common.This species causes heavy
damage to orchards by eating fruits and also spoiling
the fruits by cutting it with beak.
• The parakeets are among the most wasteful a
destructive birds.They gnaw at and cut into bits all sorts
of near-ripe fruits such as guava,ber, mango, plums,
peaches, etc.
• In sunflower when the seeds are soft the parrots cause
extensive damage by feeding on the seed thus reducing
the yield.

18. Management
• Acetylene exploders are reported to be
effectives repellents
• They can be caught with net-traps and sticky
substance (lassa).

19. Myna(Acridotheres tristis)
• Distribution :common throughout India found
up to a height of 2700m.

20. Life cycle
• Eggs: They lay 4 to 6 deep blue eggs.
• Breeding occurs from april to september.
• The nest is made in holes in walls trees trunks
out of feathers,rags,twings,leaves etc.
• These are very bold birds living with man.
• Very noisy.

22. • Damage….
• Do some damage to ripe tomatoes and figs in
garden.
• Management…..
• Nothing reported, but they can be probably
controlled with strychnine-poisoned baits or
net-traps.

23. Pigeon (cloumba livia)
• Distribution: Throughout India found up to a
height of 3800m.

24. Life cycle
• Eggs :lay only 2 elongate oval white eggs.
• Nest are crude made of coarse twigs.
• A pair probably produce abut 3 to 5 broods in a
year.
• Damage….
• They cause considerable damage to grain crops
and newly sprouting vegetable and grain crops.

26. Common Management of Birds
• Various methods are employed which include
covering by nets, using scaring devices, reducing
their population by shooting, trapping and use of
chemicals.
1. Trapping the birds in nets or catching them with the
help of sticky substance ‘Lassa’.
2. A piece of Chapatti dipped in 0.04% parathion and
placed on the top of roof is a good bait for crows.
3. Parrots and sparrows are repelled by spraying 0.6%
thiurun’ on wheat crops at milk stage.

27. Management of Birds…….
4. Scaring devices using mechanical, acoustic and visual means
are normally employed, i.e. Beating of drums to produce
sounds is still in vogue in many parts of the country
particularly during harvesting.
5. Fire crackers placed at regular intervals along a cotton rope.
The rope burns from one end and ignites the crackers at
regular interval which produce sounds and scare away the
birds.
6. Loud sounds due to the burning of acetylene gas produced at
intervals are utilized to scare away birds and small animals.
7. Birds may be scared by display of scare crows, dead birds and
visually attractive flags etc.

28. THANKS