Crows are literally ruining my life right now (badly need some advice and much-needed perspective).

[bobbythejobby]

Could desperately use some advice/perspective on this situation.

I live on a housing estate that has lots of woods close-by. Consequently we’ve always had lots of birds around the area – pigeons, magpies, blackbirds, robins, crows. All the birds was one of the things I used to like about my house because I’m a bird person (which is partly why this problem becoming such a huge deal has been a shock for me).

Problems started approx. January. I noticed a crow sitting on my neighbour's fence a few doors down and cawing very loudly and repeatedly at their front window. This went on for a few days and then everything was quiet again for a few months.March I heard a crow making this same constant, loud cawing at the windows of a nursery building right across from my house, actually sitting on the windowsills and cawing directly at the windows.This went on on and off for several weeks. At the same time seagulls started nesting on top of this nursery building (they’re still there now with a few cute little fluffy baby seagulls) and I noticed that two crows would be constantly winding up the seagulls, dive-bombing them in between one of them cawing at the windows. At this point the crows weren’t a problem for us, it was just something I’d noticed because of the noise.

Then one morning right at the beginning of May a crow had been cawing at the windows of the nursery again all morning. I closed the blinds of my upstairs bedroom where I was working on my laptop at the desk and next thing I know this crow is at my window, sitting on the sill, cawing at the windows and tapping on them. That first day it only happened that once but the next day it appeared at 5am, woke me up with this fucking infernal cawing I’ve never heard the likes of and it continued at regular intervals throughout the day right up until 945 at night.

Cue two and a half weeks of what I can only describe as absolute, literal torture. Getting woken up every morning between 430am and 530am with it cawing at every upstairs window in the house and this then continuing throughout the day until 10pm at night. It got to the point where everytime I went into an upstairs room it would be on the windowsill, sometimes cawing and tapping and sometimes just sitting on the sill, it would see me and fly off only to return. It was fucking dreadful and after two and a half weeks I could barely function I was so sleep-deprived and so sick and anxious of the noise. So I got bird spikes and put them on the upstairs windows. This solved the problem though seemed to tick off the crow for a few days, he’d appear on the back fence and caw a few times and then fly off usually in the evenings.It stayed away from our house but I would often hear it in the area, all over the place, near and far, making that awful screeching cawing sound for hours on end. But as it stayed away from the house I thought problem-solved.

A couple of weeks after putting up the bird spikes, so maybe three weeks ago now, I went out to weed my back garden. While I was out there I heard several crows all cawing and making a racket fairly close but not near my house and I couldn't see them. After going back into the house a crow then appeared on my livingroom windowsill (so downstairs windows where there are no bird spikes on the sills because it had never been at these windows until then) and started cawing at the window. It only done this once and disappeared.

Since then, whenever I open my upstairs bedroom window (the window it first appeared to caw and tap at) I hear it cawing close-ish, maybe once or twice. Worse than that when I leave the house I sometimes (it’s only sometimes) hear what sounds like very young crows cawing on my roof and then the parent either lands on a nearby roof and starts cawing or I’ll hear a crow caw in the distance as if replying. It feels like it’s being directed at only me because I don’t hear it when my neighbours leave their houses. A couple of times when I’ve left the house to walk into town I’ve heard that same loud, angry cawing when I’ve gotten about five minutes’ walk away and been convinced I’m being followed by this crow. Sometimes when I go into rooms in my house I’ll hear this sudden loud cawing as if it’s actually watching my house.

I don’t think there’s any crow nests on my roof for context. I do think this crow has been hanging around in the street on and off for a while as a lot of my neighbours have overflowing bins. I do often see it at several neighbour’s bins.

I never physically chased this crow away from my windows when it was sitting on the sills cawing but it’s obviously seen my face because I couldn't possibly avoid it when it was always on the bloody windowsills of every room I went into.

I feel like the tipping point was when I weeded the garden that day but I don’t get why me weeding my garden was seen as being threatening?

I’m aware how totally stupid this sounds and that I’m probably blowing this out of proportion but it’s been two solid months now since this started and I literally think about this every moment of the day. As utterly ridiculous and over-dramatic as this sounds, all the joy has literally been sucked out of my life since this started. I’m constantly feeling my heart thumping thinking about how my house is ruined because all I read online about crows is that they have long memories and hold grudges for long periods.

I don’t think I’m normally someone who blows a problem out of proportion and I don’t think I’m prone to catastrophising but this is literally dominating my thoughts almost every moment of the day and I’m even having dreams about it at night. I’m thinking now about asking my GP for anti-anxiety medication for the first time in my life. I don’t want to talk to anyone in real life about this because I’m embarrassed about what a big deal this has become for me and how anxious it’s making me.

I spent years bouncing around in insecure accommodation, thinking I’d never have a house I could call my own, and now I do but it’s been ruined and I’ll never be able to leave the house without being anxious about being cawed at and people noticing I’m being harassed by crows, I’ll never be able to take rubbish out to the bin without being cawed at, can’t ever step foot in my back garden again, will have to listen to that angry caw when I go into a room in my house and it sees me through the windows.

Can anyone who’s knowledgeable about crows give me some advice and perspective on this because it’s gotten to be too big a deal in my head and I’ve lost all perspective.

I know it might be suggested I leave food out for this crow but I'm not keen to do this as it obviously knows my house and I don't want to give it a reason to keep hanging around.

Am I blowing this out of proportion?? Is this crow ever going to forget about me and my house? And most importantly, will this ever stop or has my much-longed-for home been ruined for good for me?

God, this post got way longer than I planned when I started it - sorry for the mega-long read.

Was that me? My dog stole a baby crow, killed it, the whole murder in the park harassed us for weeks, quite rightly. I had to ask the dog walker to avoid the area (she’s terrified of being dive bombed). I’m still wary after being told crows remember and pass on grudges for years! Idiot dog has stopped chasing them, mostly, took him a while to understand that it wasn’t a great idea.

Still wish I could figure out why sometimes when I go out I hear a baby crow (they make this sound that's kind of like a caw but higher pitched and not as loud so I assume it's a baby/fledgling) immediately start cawing. It's like as soon as I step out the door it starts sometimes, then other times I hear nothing.

If it happens sometimes and sometimes not, it's most likely got nothing to do with you at all. We are primed as humans to recognise patterns but that means sometimes we see patterns where there aren't any. I think if you were already unsettled by the crow shouting at your window you are more likely to interpret the crows cawing as directed at you than if that hadn't happened. Crows are noisy birds, especially in spring, and caw at random things. Baby birds of all species are even noisier, especially when hungry. It is more likely be asking it's parent for food.

@Cherrysoup im not certain but I don’t think it was your thread. This woman was actually walking the dog herself on a field and the crows were divebombing her and the dog. I think it was because her dog had been chasing crows if I remember right. She posted because a friend had asked her (like a whole year later or something) if she wanted to meet up on this field and they could walk their dogs together and she was nervous about it happening again. I take it the crows stopped harassing you and your dog eventually?

@Persephonia1966 thanks for helping me see things a bit more logically. I really appreciate all the times you’ve done that on this thread when I’ve been letting my (overblown) worries get the better of me. Maybe I’m just peri-menopausal and haven’t realised it yet. Or I’m just looking for a reason to explain why this has become weirdly such a big deal for me lol who knows.

@Cherrysoup https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4974597-to-be-scared-that-im-still-marked-by-the-crows

this was the thread I read about the woman and her dog. It seemed that even after a whole year gap the crows remembered her and her dog.. She never came back to the thread after saying she was going to try going back to the field she’d been divebombed but I’d love to know how things went for her.

We’re ok there now. Occasionally there’s a crow sitting in the middle and we just avoid. I’m reinforcing recall after they surprised a muntjac in a park recently and went off in full voice, horrible for the muntjac.

Thought things were getting better but it’s all started again the last two days.

I noticed that every time I open the upstairs bedroom window (the very first window it appeared and started cawing at) a crow would immediately start cawing nearby and what sounded like a young one would join in. They’ve also been flying past close to this window for days now as if they’re trying to check for who knows what. Then this morning its started cawing at the downstairs windows. Because that’s the only windows without bird spikes as it had never bothered with these windows before. I still can’t use my back garden either without all the cawing starting.

why the fuck is this happening? What have I even done to deserve this except put up window spikes on the upstairs windows because I couldn’t take being woken up at 430 every morning and then weeded my garden. This is so fucking unfair and making me so angry and frustrated. I just want one day of not thinking or hearing crows, of not feeling targeted like this. I just want my quiet peaceful house back so bad.

This has been going for 11 weeks now. When is it going to stop? Is it ever going to stop?

Google ‘bird scarer kite’. It goes atop a flexible telescopic pole, and then appears to be a hovering bird of prey which moves with the wind. You’ll need to move the location regularly so they don’t realise it’s not real, but it might break the cycle. About £40 on Amazon including the pole.

I still think they’re being driven mad by their reflections.

Thanks for the tip. Even when I get them away from the windows though they still hang around on the grass across from my house (but close to my house) cawing whenever I open the window or if they see me in one of the rooms. It’s like they’re staking out my house. I feel so trapped and I haven’t even done anything to deserve this. It’s pathetic that they’re still hanging around like this after two whole months.

That's what we used to do when I was a child living on a farm. I also remember doing crow watches. Each person would take turns to sit on a wall and clap their hands to scare them off. They were so clever though. They sit and watch and wait for you to go, then they would fly down to get the baby chicks and eggs

Our neighbours had a rook and they fed it every day almost as peace money. When they went on holiday it went on a rampage pecking at their doors windows and cars.Birds don’t generally phase me but there was something very unnerving about it.I did see the birds film as a child though.

I remember Birds. It was really scary. I've never known crows to peck on windows but then I've never fed them. We used to have a pheasant that waited for us outside the house and it would come to the door to be fed! DS was only young and he loved it when it used to peck seeds out of his hand. He gave it a name, 'Pappy'. It developed a habit of waiting on the neighbour's car and when it saw us in the house it would scratch the bonnet in its rush to get to the door! One day it disappeared and never returned and we were very sad 😔