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Apr 01 2012 14 Comments

A (foreign?) head on a stick

It’s not all that unusual for farmers to fashion scarecrows from mannequin heads and a few old clothes — a look that can be both surprisingly convincing as well as suitably scary.

Others, however, are either not so creative or simply can’t be bothered, and instead just make do by shoving a head on a stick.

Japanese scarecrow

Categorized: Odd, Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Hans ter Horst says

    4/1/2012 at 8:31 pm

    I guess it goes back to Edo times and the samurai providing an abundance of heads to be put on sticks 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/1/2012 at 11:38 pm

      Yes, that’s very true!

      Reply
  2. john says

    4/1/2012 at 10:53 pm

    If it’s just to deter birds rather than trespassers, I’d think that birds can’t be that stupid
    to confuse this with a real person, but then they might be more put off by the
    Rothko in the background and prefer something a bit more (Hiroshi) Matsumo?
    Nice hairstyle for nesting material too.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/2/2012 at 8:51 am

      Maybe, but while I don’t want to do them a disservice, I’m not sure that birds are all that concerned with whether it’s a Rothko or Matsumo-like background!

      Reply
  3. Jon says

    4/2/2012 at 1:30 am

    I bet the birds just ignore those scarecrows anyway. Someday Japan will use robot scarecrows.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/2/2012 at 8:53 am

      Yeah, I’m not convinced they work either. Hopefully though there’ll be robots to clean apartments and cook before they move on to bird scaring!

      Reply
  4. Thom says

    4/2/2012 at 6:42 am

    Is this a wink at the return of Game of Thrones tonight?

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/2/2012 at 8:54 am

      Nah. To be honest Thom, I’m embarrassed to say I don’t even know what Game of Throness is…

      Reply
  5. winnie says

    4/2/2012 at 8:57 pm

    This is frightening!
    It might scare away the Human beings (at least it’s scare me) but not the Birds.
    Nowadays, the birds are getting smarter..

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/3/2012 at 1:16 pm

      It’s a bit disturbing, isn’t it? But yeah, I’m pretty sure the birds are smart enough to know it’s not real.

      Reply
  6. Sam says

    4/2/2012 at 11:14 pm

    Lee – with a hair do like that, it has to be a J-guy surely

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/3/2012 at 1:18 pm

      I don’t know, doesn’t look carefully enough disheveled to me.

      Reply
  7. Jeffrey says

    4/3/2012 at 1:52 am

    “Foreigner”? Nah. Looks like a salon model head catering to hosts or visual kei band members. I mean, look at the yellow lipstick.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      4/3/2012 at 1:19 pm

      Good point. Hadn’t considered the lipstick.

      Reply

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