Prevalence, Management Practices and Behavioral Characteristics of Rice-Eating in the Three Rice Producing Regions of Uganda

Many studies have proposed a number of bird-pest management techniques to prevent birds from damaging cereal crops, which include the use of acoustic devices, motion detection, image recognition and ultrasonic waves. The efficacy of these techniques however falls short of their ability to adapt their functions to the behavior of the birds, which are generally considered intelligent. The objective of this study is to understand the species prevalence and behavioral characteristics of rice-eating birds to aid the development of an intelligent system, which can detect and deter bird pests from de-stroying the rice fields. The study was conducted during the second rice season, (Aug – Dec 2023) in the three leading rice-producing regions of Uganda. Our findings show that, village weavers, bronze manikins, red-billed quelea and redheaded quelea are the most common and destructive species in the three regions. However, village weaver and bronze mannikins were distributed through the three regions while red-billed and redhead quelea birds were prevailing Tororo district. Our results, further shows, the average loss caused by bird pests in terms of kilograms and cost when birds are man-aged well. Additionally, farmers has knowledge on behavioral characteristics of these birds in terms of feeding patterns, way of communication, predator detection among others.