Discouraging crows?

The increase of buzzards & sparrow hawks in my area has definitely had an effect on the songbird population - I’ve witnessed them taking baby birds. Never seen a crow or rook do that.
 
mule said:
I know someone who shoots them and hangs up their bodies in order to discourage others from coming around. That sounds very unpleasant now I've typed it out:eek: I don't know if it even works.

A neighbour of mine uses a Larsen trap. This does work but is cruel imo :(
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Apparently, there is some truth in this. Crows (and magpies) hold 'funerals' to mourn for the dead. They gather near the dead bird and caw loudly and will then avoid the area until they are reassured it is safe.
 
dogatemysalad said:
Apparently, there is some truth in this. Crows (and magpies) hold 'funerals' to mourn for the dead. They gather near the dead bird and caw loudly and will then avoid the area until they are reassured it is safe.
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Like elephants. Another intelligent creature which is persecuted. Personally, I can tolerate a bit of bird shit.
 
dogatemysalad said:
Apparently, there is some truth in this. Crows (and magpies) hold 'funerals' to mourn for the dead. They gather near the dead bird and caw loudly and will then avoid the area until they are reassured it is safe.
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We have a lot of crows and I didn’t know that. I also hadn’t realised it was them scattering poo!

I’m quite fond of them - they all used to wait around when my mini Shetland was moulting and would collect all the coat I groomed off.

According to a neighbour the big crows are ravens... not sure how you tell the difference.
 
Without being pedantic although I probably am are they crows or rooks I thought crows were solitary and rooks communal. Old saying "a crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow" We have rooks they are great for clearing the field of the tons of moulted hair from the ponies even helping with the grooming in the spring by sitting on their backs helping themselves They do spread the poo a little but not much Buzzards are carrion eaters so would love them to take the rabbits but its not in their nature to do so
 
windand rain said:
Without being pedantic although I probably am are they crows or rooks I thought crows were solitary and rooks communal. Old saying "a crow in a crowd is a rook and a rook on its own is a crow" We have rooks they are great for clearing the field of the tons of moulted hair from the ponies even helping with the grooming in the spring by sitting on their backs helping themselves They do spread the poo a little but not much Buzzards are carrion eaters so would love them to take the rabbits but its not in their nature to do so
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On this description I think we may have rooks.

Hope OP finds a way to sort her crow problem.
 
Leam_Carrie said:
Will have to take this to the field and check. Definitely some jackdaws as a few have the grey area. And plenty of magpies which I didn’t realise were related. But only an occasional jay - so pretty.
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I've only ever seen Jays in urban settings.
In wilts the biggest culprit of spreading was the dung beetles I think, don't get them in somerset field at least!
 
dogatemysalad said:
Apparently, there is some truth in this. Crows (and magpies) hold 'funerals' to mourn for the dead. They gather near the dead bird and caw loudly and will then avoid the area until they are reassured it is safe.
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Bah, I feel bad for them now
 
Leam_Carrie said:
According to a neighbour the big crows are ravens... not sure how you tell the difference.
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shape of tail, head/beak, the noise that they make (when flying they make a characteristic short noise x3 to each other) and they are superb acrobats in the air in mating season.

I had an awful problem with rooks a few years ago-like the OP, neighbouring field would literally be covered in them. We also have ravens and the buggers steal eggs out of the coops. Anyway, I found a dead fledgeling in the horses field which is in the next village. I hung it up on my willow tree-when the rooks flew past that evening returning to the rookery, I swear the front birds did a double take at the dead bird-the whole lot circled around my garden (and my head) twice looking at the dead bird and then went home. It was quite spooky and unsettling, there were tons of them. Anyway, it only worked for a few days. I don't know if the farmer had a cull, the rookery is still there but they've not been such a problem for the last 3 years or so. The farmers hate magpies and ravens around here.

An amusing raven story-we have buzzards of course and generally you see the rooks seeing them off and the buzzards not really being that bothered by them. They aren't often seen right near my house and I've always attributed it to the rooks. I was watching a buzzard flying over my house one day, it had just shrugged off a couple of rooks that were mithering it- and suddenly a pair of ravens flew like bullets from the line of Scots pines that they nest in about .5km away making a racket straight at it-the buzzard literally put the handbrake on, turned 180 very fast and legged it quickly in the other direction.



Jays are new one round here-only appeared a couple of years ago. We have amazing birdlife but then we have hundreds of acres of moor (no shooting on it so we even get the odd hen harrier and peregrine ;) ), old woodland and pasture all around us.
 
Yikes, Im always shocked when some people suggest killing animals purely because they scatter your horse poo around your field a little bit... that seems insane and seriously messed up to me! But then I dont kill animals (I realise this forums majority have no issues killing things). I'd just try to poo pick more often before they have a chance to scatter it much.
 
Every time I see this thread I miss read the title as 'discouraging cows'.

I know it is about birds spreading horse poo, but the image of Daisy the Jersey or Ermintrude the Holstein saying 'oh no, I wouldn't do that if I were you... it'll end badly' etc... just keeps popping into my head.

I *might* be going a tad insane. Sorry. ;)
 
Faracat said:
Every time I see this thread I miss read the title as 'discouraging cows'.

I know it is about birds spreading horse poo, but the image of Daisy the Jersey or Ermintrude the Holstein saying 'oh no, I wouldn't do that if I were you... it'll end badly' etc... just keeps popping into my head.

I *might* be going a tad insane. Sorry. ;)
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🤣🤣Now you've set me off!
 
We have lots of crows, they nest in the big trees opposite our house. About a month ago they all left suddenly - around the same time we spotted a pine Martin crossing the road into a wild wood area (trees that the crows nested in) and apparently they climb trees and have been known to eat crows.

So maybe import a pine Martin or get a fake model of one to put in field?

Or a good old fashioned scarecrow lol
 
Love scarecrows, they always make me smile. Local village is currently filled with spectacular scarecrows, one is riding a straw horse. Apparently there's a man who travels the country, photographing and recording the data. I think that's a pretty cool pastime.
 
Maybe just embrace your crows? Corvids are very smart and really quite entertaining. I enjoy watching our resident jackdaws and crows as they peck around the fields and squabble. I suspect that the only way to get rid of them would be to kill them, and I don't think they deserve that for spreading a bit of poo around!
 
I am quite fond of the crows in our fields. However, I have found a few dead (drowned) in our water troughs recently which is sad. No idea why this is suddenly happening but I would like to stop it happening, so quite interested in how to deter them from the troughs.
 
Griffin said:
I am quite fond of the crows in our fields. However, I have found a few dead (drowned) in our water troughs recently which is sad. No idea why this is suddenly happening but I would like to stop it happening, so quite interested in how to deter them from the troughs.
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Try keeping the troughs filled up. They may not be able to get out if the water level is too low.
 
mule said:
Bah, I feel bad for them now
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Don't! The bastards are quite happy to peck the eyeballs and tongue out of any sheep that gets stuck on her back or feels poorly enough to lie down for a while 🤬 They also started pecking holes in all our haylage bales so OH shot one and left it on top of the bale stack. Problem stopped just like that but no "funeral", they just cleared off somewhere else.
 
Brownmare said:
Don't! The bastards are quite happy to peck the eyeballs and tongue out of any sheep that gets stuck on her back or feels poorly enough to lie down for a while 🤬 They also started pecking holes in all our haylage bales so OH shot one and left it on top of the bale stack. Problem stopped just like that but no "funeral", they just cleared off somewhere else.
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You'd think they'd at least wait until the sheep die:oops:
 
The ones we have here are damaging our cars. Discovery rear wiper gets shredded and the rubber seal around the front windows as well. I also know someone who had a mare foal at night in the field and they pecked one of the foal's eyes out. :(
 
Brownmare said:
Oh that's not the half of it! I'd tell you what they do to newborn lambs but you'd see your breakfast again.... and God help anything with an open wound, they just start eating them alive 😩
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Magpies also do this, hence farmers hating them. Ravens stalk newborn lambs-they work in pairs with one distracting the ewe. One farmer I know swears he had a newborn calf killed by ravens although it was still alive when he found it.
 
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