After countless attempts at stopping sparrows from building nests in the eaves of his house, a taxi driver from Changhua’s Hsichou Township (溪洲) has resorted to drastic measures: covering his entire house with a huge fishing net.
Chen Wen-cheng (陳文政) has been disturbed by sparrows since he built his mansion next to an expanse of rice fields eight years ago. Flocks of the birds have built hundreds of nests under the roof of his house.
Chen made various attempts to prevent the birds from nesting in his house over the years. He erected a scarecrow on his balcony, set off firecrackers to scare away the birds and hung up numerous mirrors and blank CDs on the outer walls of his house to drive them away.
PHOTO: YEN HUNG-CHUN, TAIPEI TIMES
But none of these attempts were effective.
Then one day he saw a “net-covered” coop while driving a customer. After enquiring with chicken farmers about the purpose of the net, Chen was told that it had been set to protect the chickens from being infected by sparrows with avian flu or fowl plague.
Inspired by the net-covered henhouse, Chen went to a nearby fishing village and had a huge fishing net made.
He nailed the green net all over the walls of his house, despite admitting that it looks somewhat strange and may even be unfavorable to his home’s fengshui.
Chen chose a fishing net over a nylon bird catching net because he didn’t want to see the birds killed in the net. Touched by Chen’s concern for the birds, one of his friends even gave him a statue of a sparrow in admiration.
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