Crows will attack their reflections

THE early morning rappings of a persistent crow are baffling a Saltburn couple.

The crow - nicknamed Wakey - disturbs retired master mariner Captain Mike Sellars, and his wife, Sue, at their home in Victoria Terrace, by rapping on their windows until they get out of bed.

Mrs Sellars said: "We heard this rapping, insistent rapping, and we couldn't work out where from.

"My husband got up and saw the crow sitting on the landing windowsill. He brushed it away and came back to bed.

"Twenty minutes later it was back on the landing window. My husband frightened it away and 20 minutes later it is on the study window going crazy. The following morning the same thing happened again. My husband's threatening to shoot it."

Dave Hirst, of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "Crows are very territorial and often when you see them interacting with windows they have seen a reflection and that is why they start attacking the window. They think it is an intruder."