The Cork Crow Conundrum
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What prompted the discussion about the aggressive crow?
I was on the Today Show during the week doing our little nature slot with Dolly and Sinead. And while I was getting made up, Katie, who is the makeup artist, had a question for all of you sitting here. Here it is.
So my name's Kate and I'm from Cork. And for the first time ever in our home, we have a massive, huge black and grey crow who is very aggressively waking us at half five and pecking at the glass.
Now, by your description, I'd say it's a hooded crow.
And he's a lot of grey feathers mixed with the black. He looks like he's wearing a little cloak.
So what is he doing exactly?
He is trying to chip away at the glass. He's destroyed the windows and he is attacking the windows very aggressively. He'll stare you down when you come into the room. And he is quite vicious looking.
And do you know if they're nesting nearby?
How can you identify a hooded crow?
You know they're nesting colonies, so you can certainly hear them. And you can see them.
Possibly. We are surrounded by trees. But we've lived there for 20-odd years and we've never had them before.
And are you out in the countryside?
Near a big national park, but in a suburb.
Don't you be very mysterious.
Which national park? The regional park of Alan Gullick.
All right, OK, very good. So you want to know what?
How to get rid of him. How to stop him from waking us up and attacking our windows. Well, let's see what our panel has to say about that.
Don't get rid of it. Why get rid of it? It's wonderful. And the poor old hooded crow, I'm a little bit disappointed in that hooded crow because crows are extremely intelligent. And hooded crows, they should have copped on that this thing in the window isn't an alien bird that they're trying to drive off from their territory.
What behaviors indicate the crow is attacking its reflection?
So we should explain that first of all. You think the bird is attacking its own image. It's catching its reflection in the glass and saying, get out of here. Now, I have a different thought.
Yeah.
What is it? Well, I'm going to tell you. So as I'm driving around the country and I stop, usually at the M14 junction to get coffee and a sausage and egg sandwich. And if I'm having it in the car sometimes because it's very busy inside, the crows come over to the car because they know I'm in there eating and I might just throw out some food. So I was wondering, had this crow been fed by others by tapping on the window nearby where she lives? And is that what it's doing? Oh, it wouldn't. Not impossible.
But is it doing it all the time or is it only doing it now in the mating season? Every morning. Yeah, but in the mating season, does it do morning, winter, summer, all the time?
Well, I didn't get into that. It's white tail. It only started recently. It only started recently.
Well, it is. It is something that crows are known for doing. And in most birds, when they do it, tapping on windows and especially the breeding season now. Why? with most species so put the crows to one side for the moment with most species when your wagtail does it or your chaffinch or your blue tit or robin robin will do it it's a territorial response because they see that reflection in the glass it's obviously a very pure clean reflection which you wouldn't normally see in nature even in water there'd be ripples and so on So it doesn't compute. They don't know what they're looking at themselves. They're seeing this reflection. They think it's a rival who's come into their territory. And not only a rival who's come into their territory.
When they go to attack that rival to drive it off, rather than taking the hint, it fights back with equal ferocity. It matches them blow for blow. And this can drive them nuts. So that's what's happening there because those birds don't realise. In the generality. But in the case of the hooded crow. grey crow it's all the one it is a very common and widespread species here in Ireland but a species that if you go to even just across the water to Britain it's far more restricted there you find it in parts of western Scotland but throughout most of the rest of Scotland and England and Wales it's replaced by another species called the carrion crow which is all black but also behaves in a very similar way so this black and grey crow common in Ireland the hooded crow grey crow scald crow we do know that they are capable of identifying their reflections at least maybe there's some that I'm sure they're smarter than others
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What prompted the discussion about the aggressive crow?
0:00–0:54
2
How can you identify a hooded crow?
0:54–1:46
3
What behaviors indicate the crow is attacking its reflection?
1:46–4:17
4
Why do crows tap on windows during the mating season?
4:17–4:50
5
What strategies can be used to deter the crow without harming it?
4:50–5:20