Agriculture Idol

Chapter 124 Chestnut-eared Bulbul
The video continued to play, and the civet turned around on the wall, with a body about 60 centimeters long and a tail of 40 centimeters flexibly maintaining balance on the wall.

The civet then climbs out of the frame along the slender branches of the persimmon tree that extend above the courtyard wall.

"In Japan, civets are also called thunder beasts." Professor Pan revealed the topic of how to deal with civets, and continued to popularize science. "It is said that it fell from a tree struck by lightning. After this kind of investigation, I found that the thunder beast in the mythology of Dongying Kingdom is basically a civet cat."

"What I'm thinking about now is whether we can plant persimmon trees on the roof. If civets, raccoon dogs, and other birds like to eat persimmons so much, can we use persimmon trees to attract these creatures to the Geyue Building? Go to the top floor?" Li Chengxin couldn't forget the various plant choices on the top floor.

"Professor Pan also knows the site on the roof of their building, and said with a smile: "It is basically impossible to plant trees. Besides, even if they are planted, the top floor is about 200 meters. It is impossible for these small mammals to climb that high by themselves. "

In addition to the civet video, the automatic infrared camera also captured moving images of many raccoon dogs, several cats and some small nocturnal creatures.

After Professor Pan explained all the small animals in the video, Li Chengxin opened another folder, which still contained several video files.

"Hey, can't you just watch it all at once? I thought there was nothing else to watch." Professor Pan originally planned to go back with the civet video and continue writing his thesis on "Urban Wildlife Essays."

Brother Xiaoyong wisely served Professor Pan a cup of tea to appease him first.

Li Chengxin said: "This time it is not the video taken at the Town God's Temple, but the video of animals visiting our small flower bed (vegetable field) taken by our staff on the top floor of the building."

Upon hearing this, Professor Pan became interested in continuing to read.

This time the video is no longer the black-and-white video as before. The video taken during the day is very clear. In the video, the plant seeds that Li Chengxin and the others planted on the floating platform on the top floor of the Geyue Entertainment Building a few months ago have been exposed. The buds sprouted and two cotyledons opened.

Ten seconds into the video, a bird flew into the camera.

"Come here!" Brother Xiaoyong pointed to a dark gray bird that was parked on the bricks of the flower bed in the video.

The bird poked its head around the flower bed and didn't notice any threat nearby, so it jumped into the soil of the flower bed and began to peck at the young shoots in the flower bed.

"It just so happens that Xinwa'er has sown too many seeds in that area. I was thinking about asking the staff to help thin the seedlings. In this way, this bird helped solve the problem instead." Brother Xiaoyong's words brought It is full of dissatisfaction with Li Chengxin's agricultural work level.

The seedling thinning he mentioned means that when the buds of a plant are too dense, you need to pull out some buds that grow close together, which can help the growth of the seedlings.

Li Chengxin smiled and ignored Brother Xiaoyong, and continued to say: "This is the first creature that visited our flower bed captured by the camera we set up on the top floor. Professor Pan, can you help me identify what kind of bird it is?"

"This is the chestnut-eared bulbul, a large finch, gray in color all over, but it has two chestnut-colored coverts on the sides of its ears, hence the name 'chestnut-eared'. The chestnut-eared short-leg Bulbuls usually inhabit low-mountain broad-leaved forests, mixed forests, and forest margins, and also appear in sparse forests and miscellaneous forests near human habitats such as town parks, orchards, cottages, landsides, and roadsides..."

Professor Pan began to introduce the bird seriously.

"...often in groups of 3-5. They mostly move and forage among the branches and leaves of the crown and tail. They are lively and good at singing. They are omnivorous. They mainly feed on the fruits and seeds of trees and shrubs, and also eat some insects."

Just as I was talking, the birds in the flower bed ate some seedlings and began to sing.

Suddenly, another bird flies into the camera.

"Here comes another one!" Brother Xiaoyong also needs to do a good job in the video commentary work. Seeing that Professor Pan just said that the chestnut-eared bulbuls move in groups, this one came. The quantity is very impressive.

In this way, this field has become a favorite place for chestnut-eared short-footed bulbuls, and they can be photographed from time to time.

"These chestnut-eared bulbuls may bring seeds from other places and add some other kinds of weeds to your flower beds." Professor Pan continued.

The food source of the birds is definitely not limited to the flower bed on the top floor. They eat seeds and fruits in other places, and when they excrete, they will leave the seeds they ate before, bringing other greenery to the flower bed on the top floor.

This is exactly what Li Chengxin and the others expected, and this is the creation of a normal ecosystem.

Soon, a video caught the attention of Professor Pan. In the video, it was still the image of the chrysanthemum bulbul pecking at the seedlings in the flower bed, but the call of the chrysanthemum bulbul was different.

Different from the previous "chirp chirping" sound, this time the chestnut-eared bulbul's voice was more sharp and high-pitched. After calling like this a few times, several chestnut-eared bulbuls flew away in one direction.

"It seems that the chestnut-eared bulbul has encountered some kind of threat." Professor Pan judged.

"This high threat, do we have any raptors here?" Li Chengxin quickly thought of this possibility.

After the chestnut-eared short-footed bulbul flew away, a slightly larger bird flew over and landed on the railing of the floating platform on the top floor.

"Hey, it's a crow." Professor Pan didn't need to identify it, both Li Chengxin and Brother Xiaoyong recognized the bird.

In recent years, there have been more and more crows in big cities. When looking for food in the trash can, they will turn over the garbage everywhere, and there are even reports of people who went to drive the crows away and were pecked by crows.

At the same time, crows are disliked because they bring "bad luck", so the living environment is even worse.

There are also crows in Hongming Village. Li Chengxin talked about how he used the CD to reflect the sun to drive away crows.

In addition, there are various measures to drive away crows and other birds in the fields.

"But unfortunately, the crows may not be afraid of those things that scare them in the field after two days." Brother Xiaoyong is also experienced in this area.

At this time, Professor Pan said, "Actually speaking, crows are much smarter than other birds, and they are the most developed brains among birds."

However, Li Chengxin returned to the previous topic: "Is it because of the crow that the chestnut-eared bulbul ran away?"

Professor Pan was stunned for a moment before he remembered the reason why Li Chengxin asked this question: "Crows will not attack chestnut-eared bulbuls, but they will eat young birds and eggs, so chestnut-eared bulbuls should still regard them as crows." One of the natural enemies, I don’t want the crow to get too close to me.”

This video was captured in February, and the Chestnut-eared Bulbul won't have eggs and chicks until the spring spawning period.

"Then why did the crow appear on the roof of our building? It seems that it has no interest in the seedlings in the flower beds." Li Chengxin knew that crows were omnivores, but he was not sure if crows would eat grass.

Professor Pan agrees with Li Chengxin's bloody question: "This crow may have come to store food. Crows like to store food in the dark place on the roof of the building and eat it later. You were cleaning the floating platform on the top floor. It is estimated that the chicken bones discovered during the period were stored here by crows."

Crows were originally birds that lived in the jungle, and they liked to store leftover food in high tree holes, which was their instinct when they lived in the woods.

If the crows were allowed to store food on this floating platform, the chestnut-eared bulbul might never come here again.

Having said that, crows are also protected objects in the Wildlife Protection Law and cannot be expelled at will.

"Then what should we do?" Brother Xiaoyong was worried. "The chestnut-eared short-legged bulbul won't come, and other herbivorous birds will probably stay away from here for the same reason."

Professor Pan thought for a while: "If possible, create another environment for the crow and let it store food there."

"But, won't they come to the field after making a new food storage place?" Li Chengxin thought this proposal was amazing.

Professor Pan nodded: "As I said before, crows are very smart birds. Once they have a suitable food storage environment, they will remember that it is more suitable for food storage, and then they will always use that place."

But if you want to build a food storage place for crows to use, you first need to know their food storage habits.

　Thanks to book friends Burying the Flower Demon for their rewards, and also to book friends BWJX88 and Agoni009 for their monthly tickets!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)