I live in Toyama (which is far from Akita but kind of up north in a weird way...) and I've never heard of that before.
It's funny because if a Japanese were to ask me about babahera, I'd immediately imagine a baba-- or like an old Japanese lady. Then my mind would wander to babahara, which would consist of an old lady telling me her life story and gossipping about the neighborhood and telling me about her granddaughters who are roughly my age and then finalizing the conversation with the innevitable 「気い付けてねぃー」... the fact that she is older and you kinda just have to go with it makes it hara-worthy. Then again, babahara is better than babanara.
But going back to babahera... that looks interesting. I would NOT be surprised if I were to see that in my town (in which you'd swap a tulip shape for a rose shape). If I ever go to Akita-ken (which I'd really like to travel to the northern prefectuers someday...) (I've only been as far as Niigata and Nagano).
EDIT:
I found this blog which has a little thing about babahera (and a bit about toyama beneath it)
あるもん探しの旅