Exceptionally noisy neighbours.....crows!

G_M

This thread is amazing!

Not one post in defence of these poor ... defencelees birds!

They are just doing what birds do and as nature intended.

What is this blood-lust? They have as much right (arguably more) to live in a tree as you do to build a huge brick/stone/whatever house and live in it - at least they are just expoliting the natural resources of the landscape ehereas we humans concrete over it all and destroy the habitat for insects, mammals, birds etc en masse.

Leave the crows alone and be grateful you have natural sounds to listen to rather than living next to a motorway or noisy factory.

dacouch

G_M wrote: »

This thread is amazing!

Not one post in defence of these poor ... defencelees birds!

They are just doing what birds do and as nature intended.

What is this blood-lust? They have as much right (arguably more) to live in a tree as you do to build a huge brick/stone/whatever house and live in it - at least they are just expoliting the natural resources of the landscape ehereas we humans concrete over it all and destroy the habitat for insects, mammals, birds etc en masse.

Leave the crows alone and be grateful you have natural sounds to listen to rather than living next to a motorway or noisy factory.

I live in Central London and there is a lot of noise from traffic and emergency vehicles. Is there any way I can shoo these noise polluters away?

POPPYOSCAR

G_M wrote: »

This thread is amazing!

Not one post in defence of these poor ... defencelees birds!

They are just doing what birds do and as nature intended.

What is this blood-lust? They have as much right (arguably more) to live in a tree as you do to build a huge brick/stone/whatever house and live in it - at least they are just expoliting the natural resources of the landscape ehereas we humans concrete over it all and destroy the habitat for insects, mammals, birds etc en masse.

Leave the crows alone and be grateful you have natural sounds to listen to rather than living next to a motorway or noisy factory.

Although I agree with much of what you say, the Op just wants to move them on, not hurt them.

artbaron

There's a murder of crows (I like that) just down the road from us and believe me, they're loud. So loud that when they're in full-caw mode and you're close to the trees you need to shout to make yourself heard. Personally I like them but then again I don't live underneath their trees.

POPPYOSCAR

I can live with the crows, it is the magpies I do not like because they bully the smaller birds, especially when they have young in the nests.

harrup

G_M wrote: »

This thread is amazing!

Not one post in defence of these poor ... defencelees birds!

They are just doing what birds do and as nature intended.

What is this blood-lust? They have as much right (arguably more) to live in a tree as you do to build a huge brick/stone/whatever house and live in it - at least they are just expoliting the natural resources of the landscape ehereas we humans concrete over it all and destroy the habitat for insects, mammals, birds etc en masse.

Leave the crows alone and be grateful you have natural sounds to listen to rather than living next to a motorway or noisy factory.

Ya know...I am not sure whether you are serious or being sarcastic.

And if it's the former - have you ever lived right next to nesting crows? Not half a mile away, not hundreds or yards away, RIGHT next to them?

Unless you are hearing impaired or have a REAL odd sense of accoustic pleasure, there is no way that their incessant screeching and cawing doesn't drive you barmy. It goes on virtually ALL day, EVERY day ( unless it is hammering with rain).

I absolutely concur - it IS a "natural" sound ..... but so is a dog barking, or hearing kids screeching at the top of their lungs, or a cockrel crowing ad nauseam. Except...kids stop. Never mind how loud they are, they DON'T screech all day. Nor do most dogs bark all day long. Or cockrels carry on to cockadoodledoo.

True, killing the crows is not warranted. But trust me, you HAVE to experience this relentless racket first hand before declaring it "a beautiful natural sound". It really ain't. Forget ever hearing a songbird, or the wind.....or just peaceful quiet, even just for a couple of hours.

Lovie

harrup wrote: »

That is great that the CD worked for you. Maybe I expressed myself badly when saying " it wasn't totally useless" - for all I know we would have 3 x the number of crows nesting without it.

But I am not exactly clear on what you are saying:

Did you have crows NESTING in your trees which were sucessfully repelled by the crowsbegone CD?

Or did they simply visit and now no longer do?

Did you install an outside speaker for when the CD was playing?

I love birds hence the name. They were nesting in a tree close to my home. It was difficult at first with young crows that were finding it somewhat hard to leave the nest. I hung my computer speakers out a second floor window on the opposite side of my home. Yet my persistence paid off that year and they seem to migrate. The following year at the first sight of a crows I played the cd. My husband was so curious that he had installed a speaker in a vent in the attic. We are crow free and have the power to control them. It works for us.
Thanks for asking.
I wish you much success from the many suggestions I read here.

harrup

dacouch wrote: »

I live in Central London and there is a lot of noise from traffic and emergency vehicles. Is there any way I can shoo these noise polluters away?

Not a rational argument or fair comparison.

Presumably you CHOSE to live in this environment.

Conversely, those pesky crows "moved in" more than a decade after we did....;)

The most annoying aspect of it all being: where I live, if they just moved 100 yards or so either south, or north, or west....there are heaps of identical trees....but no people to bother.

I get it that in a city there may well be nowhere else to go for those birds. But not at the edge of Dartmoor. Come on!

martinthebandit

As I am probably the nearest thing to an 'expert'* we have on the subject I thought I would add my thoughts.

They are not crows, they are rooks and probably a few jackdaws mixed in.

If you do nothing they will return year after year, and their young will also return, in short it will keep getting busier and noisier year after year until the 'Rookery' is full to bursting.

There are four ways to deal with a rookery;

1. Remove or reduce the height of the trees, unfortunately your neighbour won't let you.

2. Shoot them, preferably with a 12 bore, same problem as number 1 (and there are more restrictions than other posters have suggested)

3. Earplugs; or

4. Get yourself a set of rook poles (although I have no idea where from, we made ours years ago from aluminium tent poles) and use them to knock the nests down, they are pretty solid things so it takes a bit of effort. Do it this weekend and repeat over the next two or three weekends until they stop trying to rebuild.

It may be easier, if you can get access to hire a cherry picker, but you are going to need it for two or three weekends on the trot so its not a cheap option.

You could, as others have suggested try all sorts of different things, scarecrows, CD's with distress calls etc but rooks are intelligent birds and will soon become habituated.

The four methods I have listed are the only ones that are effective.

*my current job is controlling birds on a military airfield.

Sooki

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

In the field next to us the farmer uses what looks like a bird of prey.

When we first saw it we thought it was real.


It is on a wire and flutters up and down, it certainly seems to work as all the birds end up over with us!!

Absolutely no expert whatsoever but Have you tried decoy's like poppyoscar suggests ?

I think Hawks, owls & foxes are the natural predators. The decoys on the internet don't look too expensive. Carrion are clever, so don't leave them out too long or together, rotate them just long enough to spook them.

Trouble is they have already started nesting this year so the chances of them moving are minimal. I also think this year it's worse as the trees haven't come into leaf yet so there is nothing to muffle the sound.

Another thought, Could you get some wireless headphones and listen to you tv etc.. Through this kind of device and use ear defenders / plugs whilst their nesting?

They don't like shiny wavy things, could a helium balloon with lots of tassels accidentally get stuck in the tree?

Have you got a chimney ? getting a shiny rotating chimney cowl fitted might be enough to annoy and deter them from nesting.