To start shooting crows on my roof...

[Meggymoo777]

Okay, losing my god damn mind... The avenue into my house is flanked either side with groves of trees. The trees are not mine, it's a shared avenue. The trees are home to a huge number of crows, rooks, pigeons... not quite sure but they're all big and dark. It's like something out of a Hitchcock movie in the evenings when they come home to roost.

My problem is the mornings. During the week it doesn't bother me but I love to sleep in at the weekend. I've been awake since 6.45am with them dancing about on my roof. They're such big birds that they make such a racket between jumping, their claws scratching and the squawking. From here to the end of Summer this will happen every morning.

Outside of shooting the bastards (which I can't and obviously wouldn't do) is there ANYTHING at all I can do? I've been slamming the bedroom window but they just come back 15mins later. I'm actually really upset this morning as it's been a tough week and all I wanted was a little extra sleep.

We have the same but with seagulls. It honestly sounds like there is a human jumping above my head some mornings,

That's what we have as well. They've just started to come back over the last couple of weeks.

They are a complete pain in the arse, shitting all over cars, washing and patio. There is nothing at all pleasant about them at all.

Could quite happily blow them away with a gun.

I've had to go back in the house and get a sponge and bucket of water to clean my car window on occasion because there's so much my wipers wouldn't handle it. Even this doesn't bother me though... I just want an extra hours sleep at the weekend 😢

I'm a woman on the she this morning @KarmaStar... anything could happen! 🤪

That should say woman on the edge!!!

Invest £40 on a bird scarer. I live inland but gulls wake me, starting around 5:15 am currently. I actually enjoy bird sounds but I understand your annoyance.

You can tell a lot about a person by their attitude to animals.

Omg does no one read threads in chronological order. I do NOT want OP to shoot the birds.

Earplugs. I love the sound of rooks, runs away 😁

Thanks so much for the suggestion @ThreeblackCats. Think I'll end up going with something like that.

I'm confused when you say 'You can tell a lot about a person by their attitude to animals.'

I love animals, I even enjoy listening to the birds most of the time, just not when I'm trying to rest. I work 60+ hours a week in a stressful job, I just want to be able to get enough rest.

I watched my cat get chased away by the crows on the neighbours roof, they are ruthless birds ! Don't mess with the crows 😆 really intelligent and able to recognise faces according to David Attenborough !

I love the noise of the birds, but I also feel your pain OP. The bird scarer ideas sound good.

We have a posse of jackdaws in our garden. In the spring, when they have young, they are unbelievably noisy from about 4am. Plus we now have parakeets. Gorgeous, but very shrieky.

You can engage a falconer to come over and fly a falcon over a few times a week for a month and the crows will find somewhere else to roost. The falcon will be trained to only scare off the crows- not attack & kill them.

The issue it is too late in the year to do this this year. By now many will have their nests built and have laid eggs. It’s illegal to disturb a bird that has nested, even annoying crows/rooks (corvidae).

But it’s not too late to engage one for next year. You need to have ot scheduled in for mid-Feb to mid-March.

Do cats go for them?

Stop it. Cats slaughter enough bids and small mammals as it is.

Cats won't go for crows, unless they're stupid! Some of them are bloody massive things

I sympathise with you OP - when sleep is precious this sort of thing is very difficult to reconcile with the love of animals and birds you do have.....

Anyway, slight de-rail, but Falconry Pest Control is indeed a thing - it's all a bit "nature red in tooth and claw" but it is effective and our local council used them in the Town Centre.

I found this out a few years ago.....

I used to live in an oddly secluded place near the town centre with a big back garden set way back from the road. Our house was behind an ex hotel and there was alot of parking as it had become an HMO.

I woke up one Sunday morning and flung open the curtains to see about 8 various birds of prey, all sitting on their little hoops pushed into our wild lawn, being given their breakfast.

I actually closed and opened the curtains again because I absolutely believed I was hallucinating / dreaming.

I woke my DP and said you're never going to believe this.....

Ten minutes later we're down in the garden, in our dressing gowns meeting owls, hawks, kestrels..... it was utterly magical....

Turns out my adult children had been out in town and met the falconer in a bar. He'd been working but there had been some sort of fubar with his accommodation and there hadn't been a safe place for him to be with the birds overnight - he needed secure parking and to be able to sleep in the van too.

So my kids being my kids, said come back to ours - we have hidden parking and a big garden. We didn't get the heads up because it was the early hours but we really didn't mind at all....

DP died last year, and I treasure the pictures I have of him, nose to nose with a falcon, in his dressing gown and New Rocks..... so I know this is irrelevant to your dilemma but thank you for starting a thread that led me to such a lovely memory.....

And I hope you find the very best solution to your problem for all concerned ☺️

I love crows :)

You made me smile at the image of them disco dancing on your roof, but then it's not mine.

Hope you get a bit more peace soon.

This is such a wonderful story @MistressoftheDarkSide Thank you so much for sharing it with me and I'm so glad that this thread brought back some beautiful memories for you ❤️ x

More insulation on the roof?

HangingOver · Today 11:34Do cats go for them?

Stop it. Cats slaughter enough bids and small mammals as it is.”

It’s one stupid cat that will go for any corvid.

@MistressoftheDarkSide that is lovely :)

A bit of magic in a humdrum world.

I can just imagine the next AIBU...

"My problem is the mornings. During the week it doesn't bother me but I love to sleep in at the weekend. I've been awake since 6.45am with gunshots - this mad woman shooting birds on the roof" :)

Thank you @GladAllOver this gave me a good laugh 😂

Why are they more likely to be jackdaws? Very few of those round my way, but plenty of crows. They are very noisy, but I prefer their noise to that of the local magpies, they sound almost mechanical.

This. It seems to work.

Not only can they recognise individual faces, but they can tell other crows that a particular person is dangerous or disliked, so if you upset a crow, completely different crows will then also attack you. The opposite is also true. If you are kind to them and they like you, they will sometimes leave you gifts.
OP I think you probably have a mixture of Jackdaws and Rooks, as they often socialise together. Jackdaws are the smallest of our black Corvids, and have pale blue eyes. Rooks are fairly large and have fluffy “trousers” and a long slim bill, adult rooks have a grey area at the top of the bill. As I type I can hear them both in my garden eating seed. I can differentiate calls now and understand some of what they are saying. I find their chatter familiar and comforting.

Corvidae are super smart and can actually learn to talk if given a tongue operation to allow human speech. They can make and use tools as well as a chimpanzee.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191211-crows-could-be-the-smartest-animal-other-than-primates