maraud

A PALE VIEW OF HILLS by Kazuo Ishiguroを丁度半分程読みました。小説としては非常に珍しく難しい単語がほとんど出て来ません。既に取り上げた慣用句を除くと、分からない単語で辞書を引くのはこれでたったの二つ目です。
She stood up several that had fallen completely, then, crouching down so her knees almost touched the wet grass, adjusted the net I had laid above the soil to protect the plants from marauding birds.
鳥が "marauding" するのを防ぐためのネットと言うことですが、何でしょう？　辞書で確認します。
・Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary: a) to roam about and raid in search of plunder b) raid, pillage: just for kicks, bored teenagers marauded neighborhood houses while their owners were away
・Infoplease Dictionary: to roam or go around in quest of plunder; make a raid for booty: Freebooters were marauding all across the territory.
・Vocabulary.com: raid and rove in search of booty: “marauding rebels overran the countryside”
As a verb maraud means to rove about the countryside looking for goods to steal and in general, to make mayhem and trouble. The Gilbert and Sullivan opera "The Pirates of Penzance" (Ref. http://blog.alc.co.jp/blog/3302827/80840 )is about a band of marauding pirates, the daughters of Major-General Stanley, and a big misunderstanding.
確かに鳥は畑を荒しますね。　虫の方がもっと厄介な "freebooters" だと言うのが私の実感ですが。
Reader's Digestの8月号が借りられたので、A PALE VIEW OF HILLSを読むのは一時中断します。

追記：　RD8月号の映画紹介のページに "maraud" が次ぎの様に出て来ました。
What: 1875, New Mexico. Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a stranger with no memory, arrives in the desolate town of Absolution, run by the iron-fisted Colonel Woodrew Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford), and a town attacked by strange marauders from the sky.