TEN THOUSAND CROWS TAKE OVER SUNNYSIDE, WASHINGTON, AT NIGHT - Reminiscent of the Hitchcock movie The Birds - Residents desperate.

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By Sophie Jane Evans for MailOnline

Around 10,000 crows descend on Sunnyside, Washington, every night

Merchants are placing fake owls on rooftops in bid to scare them away

Meanwhile, police have resorted to using pyrotechnics, or 'bird bombs'

These are basically 'fireworks in shells'; aim to scare crows with noise

Despite town-wide efforts, birds continue to swoop over town nightly

Scenes are reminiscent of 1963 Alfred Hitchock classic film, The Birds 

The crows, which are apparently attracted to the area because they can share food with the thousands of cows in nearby dairy farms, typically appear after 4.30pm.

 

In addition to dropping feces, they also create noise pollution, pose a risk to the town's electricity services by sitting on power lines and have even attacked residents during nesting season.

 

Explaining the police's use of pyrotechnics, Sunnyside Police Commander Scott Bailey told ABC News. 'Basically, it’s a firework inside a pistol shell. We’re simply trying to scare them off.'   

 

They come in the thousands when it gets dark

Cmdr. Bailey said the shells - often called 'bird bombs' - offer a non-lethal method to combat the population of crows, which has multiplied dramatically in the past five years.

 

'We’re dealing with up to 10,000 crows every day,' he said, adding that citizens in the eastern town are warned before officers open fire and rarely complain about the noise. 

 

Officer Samuel Ramos told Kima-TV: 'They create a mess. Obviously, it's a problem for the community. It's more humane to push them away than to obviously kill them.'

SCENE FROM THE MOVIE "THE BIRDS"

The department, which used to shoot dead the birds, is also hoping to establish a 'tree line' for the crows to gather at, away from the town, within the next five years, Cmdr Bailey said. 
 

According to a previous study by the University of Cambridge in England, members of the crow family are among the cleverest birds - and are even smarter than most mammals.

 

Scientists said that, while having very different brain structures, both crows and primates use a combination of mental tools, including imagination, to solve similar problems.

 

This means crows can perform tasks that three and four-year-old children have difficulty with.

It also means that harassment techniques are usually only effective for a short period of time.

 

In Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, the California town of Bodega Bay suddenly becomes the subject of a series of widespread, unexplained and violent bird attacks.

 

The classic, loosely based on the 1952 story 'The Birds' by Daphne du Maurier, stars Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Tippi Hedren and Veronica Cartwright. 

Source
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2863041/Police-resort-bird-bombs-combat-TEN-THOUSAND-crows-descend-small-Washington-town-night.html



RELATED

Six terrifying ways in which crows are smarter than you think
http://www.cracked.com/article_19042_6-terrifying-ways-crows-are-way-smarter-than-you-think.html

Frequently asked questions about crows
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/crows/crowfaq.htm

Five ways to prevent being attacked by crows
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/5-ways-to-avoid-being-attacked-by-crows-1.2693880

People having their hair tied up as a pony tail should have a hat or a hood ready.  Sometimes -  from the crows' perspective - a pony tail looks like a bird with a long tail perched on a person's head.  This is something that the intelligent crows would normally be able to discern, except that they go absolutely insane during nesting season, when they attack anything that moves within a certain distance from their nest. 

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