Booms for the birds are nuisance for some, necessity for others in Wine Country

At first, Sebastopol area resident Nancy Martin and her husband did not know what to make of the frequent booming noises they suddenly started hearing in mid-August.  Neither did their neighbors. “We were walking around the neighborhood and we’d run into people, and they’d say, ‘What’s that noise we’re hearing?’ ” Martin said. “And we would say, ‘I don’t know, maybe hunting.’ ” But the sounds were going off at very frequent intervals — sometimes as much as 20 per minute — and could last for 13 hours a day, Martin estimated. So hunting-related gunshots didn’t sound quite right.  Then a neighbor emailed with the most likely answer: bird cannons. Vineyards employ the noise-making devices powered by propane to scare away birds that may seek to prey on their valuable crop as harvest approaches. The use of bird cannons is nothing new, particularly in agriculture-heavy Sonoma County, but Martin, who said she has lived in her neighborhood for 30 years, could not recall ever hearing them before.