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Stone the crows!

I live close to woodland, and often crows come over here and perch on the house roofs, cawing away and keeping an eye open for any tasty morsels to swoop down on.  I have a medium sized apple tree.  Last year it flowered very poorly, and only six apples reached maturity.  But when they were almost ready for picking, down swooped the crows and pecked great chunks out of two of them.  So I then hung four or five CDs from the branches.  Did that deter them?  Not a bit.  They had soon rendered the final four inedible by me.image 

This year the tree has loads of apples on it and I need as many suggestions as possible from you lovely people as to how I might discourage the crows and ensure that I can harvest and taste the fruit.  image

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Posts

  • Hang up some stuffed toy crows...

    It might help?

    I dunno! Just a suggestion.

    I have to contend only with pigeons and blackbirds, and I quite like to see them.

  • Hostafan1Hostafan1 Posts: 34,888

    I too hate crows. They nest in ,what I guess was meant to be, and owl hole in a neighbour's barn.

    They know I don't get up early so that's when they raid the bird feeders.

    Last year they shredded all my sweetcorn leaving them inedible. This year I'm growing them ( sweetcorn, not crows) in the polytunnel

    Devon.
  • I'm presuming you don't want to shoot them. 

    So :   Bird scarers:    You could get a banging one or else one of the kite ones that have an outline of a bird of prey.    You can also get them with a motion sensor that triggers say a sprinkler or jet of water.

    Rather than hanging CD's on a tree get one that plays a crow distress call.  That makes them go!

    You can also buy dead crow decoys.   You hang them on your fence.  They work.

     

  • PalustrisPalustris Posts: 4,307

    Mind if there are a crowd of them, then they are rooks not crows. Rooks will eat anything, but crows tend more to eating meat.

  • Ah, I didn't know that Berghill.  I'll have to have a look at some pics.

  • No there is usually only one, sometimes two, Berghill.  Jo, which are the ones that like stale scones?

  • {NorthernLass2 wrote (see)

    I'm presuming you don't want to shoot them. 

    So :   Bird scarers:    You could get a banging one or else one of the kite ones that have an outline of a bird of prey.    You can also get them with a motion sensor that triggers say a sprinkler or jet of water.

    Rather than hanging CD's on a tree get one that plays a crow distress call.  That makes them go!

    You can also buy dead crow decoys.   You hang them on your fence.  They work.}

    I didn't realise we could actually buy imitation dead birds!  My suggestion to hang stuffed toys on a fence was just an idea I thought might work. Now I know, it will save me scouring the local woods for dead crows!...    image

     

    I'm not sure I get how this 'quoting' system works. Seems a bit clumsy of me!  Sorry! I'll figure it out!

     

    Wobbly

    http://www.cool-smileys.com/images/280.gif

     

     

     

     

  • It is a bit strange Jo. Most other fora I use you just click the quote button, and the relevant post appears inside quote brackets in your new message form. Ah well, to each their own! image

    Wobbly 

    http://www.cool-smileys.com/images/280.gif

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,138

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • Thank you Dove..  I always knew I had influence! image

    Wobbly  

    http://www.cool-smileys.com/images/280.gif

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