HONOLULU -- Many Hawaii farms are using human scarecrows to protect the state's corn seed industry from birds.

Alicia Galacgac has picked macadamia nuts and pineapple for decades, but now, at age 84, she's come out of retirement to shoo birds out of corn fields.

Armed with a flattened plastic pipe, Galacgac roams around the field, making noise to keep the birds away during peak planting season.

"(I'm) dancing all the day like this," she said.

In Hawaii, birds can cause devastating damage to fields which don't have bird watchers or chasers around. The culprits can include everything from ring-necked pheasants to quail.

"They usually key in on when the corn plant or soybeans are just coming out of the ground," said Syngenta Kunia station manager Mike Austin. "It's kind of like the Wendy's smorgasbord for them. As they fly over, they can see the green lines you can see behind and they get in and start digging around."

Some pests aren't just after the prized seed or food. Brazilian cardinals cut off the tops of sprouting corn, annoying planters.

"They can go down that row, snipping away," Austin said. "You can lose entire rows to these red-headed cardinals."