Depredation of Common Bulbul to Guava Fruits and Some Methods to Reduce Its Damage

El- Sawy, Mahmoud F.; El-Rashidy, Mohamed H.; Barakat, Noura M.; Amer, Nahed S.; Abdelaziz, Yasmen A.

doi:10.21608/eajbsz.2025.407863

Depredation of Common Bulbul to Guava Fruits and Some Methods to Reduce Its Damage

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

¹ Agriculture Zoology and Nematology, Department, Faculty of Agriculture, Al- Azhar University, Cairo. Egypt.

² Agriculture Zoology and Nematology, Department, Faculty of Agriculture (Girls branch), Al- Azhar University, Cairo. Egypt.

10.21608/eajbsz.2025.407863

Abstract

The common bulbul, Pycnonatus barbatus arsinoe (Lichtenstein) is one of the main wild birds that causes loss of guava crops in Egypt, in addition to some other birds, such as Sardinian Hooded crow, Corvus cornix sardonius (Trischitta) and House sparrow, Passer domesticus niloticus (Nicoll & Bonhote). Assessing bird damage in guava orchards was the aim of the current study. It also aims to reducing the bird damage in guava crop by using some methods of bird manual scaring. The most of the damage was noticed to the fruits was due to the common bulbul, as dagger and triangular marks and deep gouges were present on the fruits where the bird fed. Birds also preferred ripe fruits than unripe fruits, and the upper branches sustain more harm to tree fruits than the side and bottom branches. The highest percentage of damage by wild birds at the end of a full season are recorded (5.28%) nearby buildings (location I), followed by (4.60 %) nearby field crops (location III), while the lowest losses recorded (1.27%) nearby orchard (location II). Also, the 5th week recorded highest damage during harvest season in all locations with average (3.23 %). The amount of bird damage at the site was found to be reduced by using manual scaring methods (location II) when manual scaring practices were mainly used with value (74%) as compared to location I and III.

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