‘They take no prisoners’: The dive-bombing crows that haunt London street

The crow might have thought David Cooper’s black coat was a rival, prompting it to swoop down and attack. 

‘Suddenly I felt this thing yank at the hood, and then the fluttering of wings on the back of my head,’ the finance worker, 50, told Metro.

David fell victim to south London’s most notorious angry bird, which has gone viral in the affluent suburb for terrorising cyclists and pedestrians.  

‘I had no idea what was going on and I turned and ran,’ he explained. ‘I stopped and I could see it was up in the trees. I just had to walk away backwards because otherwise I knew that it would come for me.’

Thankfully, the bird didn’t injure him, but others on the leafy street have not been so lucky.

Townley Road in East Dulwich used to be best known as the home of 400-year-old private school Alleyns, but recently journalists have been knocking on doors for a more unfortunate claim to fame. 

It’s not a new phenomenon, with the first reports of attacks surfacing over a decade ago, but residents say the last few years have been particularly ferocious for the murder of crows living alongside them.

Although one resident branded the furore as ‘bullshit’, everyone living nearby knew about the birds when Metro.co.uk visited this week.

Residents groups have been sharing dashcam footage and warning of hotspots (the junction with Beauval Road is a particular danger zone). 

A dad-of-two, who asked not to be named, told how the crows started nesting on his roof on Beauval Road, prompting him to put netting around his solar panels to feel safer coming out of the front door.

He told how a man was ‘clawed up’ last year by a crow which drew blood, and ‘you saw people coming out of their houses with umbrellas’ to protect themselves as crows were attacking people ‘almost every time somebody went past’.

Street cleaner Robert Taylor, who looks after the high street next door, keeps ‘a wide berth’ from crows after a terrifying incident six years ago in Surrey Quays.

While taking his nine-year-old stepdaughter to school, he noticed a baby crow stuck on the ground ‘for ages’.

‘My stepdaughter begged me to help it, so being a super dad, I picked it up,’ he said.

‘The sky turned black and thousands of them came from everywhere,’ he said, describing how he beat them off with the school bag he was carrying.

‘They cut my head open, diving for the nape of my neck and my eyes in the same spot every time.

‘They thought, “You and your daughter will die for this”.’

Gospel Oak in Camden is another hotspot for dive-bombing birds, with posters up warning people to beware.

There were no such obvious signs in Dulwich, and only twitchers would notice the feathered foes perched on chimneys and in trees unless they’d read the news reports and were looking out.

The peaceful surroundings make sudden attacks all the more jarring, with David saying: ‘The shock factor is part of it and that’s what scares people. You’re not expecting anything to come from above.’

He witnessed another attack on Dovercourt Road last week, saying: ‘There was a woman who suddenly just started running. 

‘She’d been attacked by it and it was following her up the street. 

‘I don’t know if they’re protecting a nest somewhere, but they cross backwards between big trees on either side, and sort of watch you and have a go to scare you off.’

May and June is known to be peak time for crow attacks, as it is crow nesting season and they are protective of their young. 

But even so, the spate of attacks is considered unusual, and could be related to a particular incident, with the birds famously remembering faces after traumatic events.

Retired headteacher Stewart Harris, 73, has lived in the area for 35 years and said ‘there are many more crows around now than there were when we first moved here.’

They are bold, too, and last week he saw ‘a very interesting standoff’ between two crows and a tabby cat.

‘The cat was on top of the fence and the crows were bombing it. They weren’t scared of the cat at all.’ 

Retired architect Laurence Cutt said he had seen schoolgirls screaming for help after seeing a crow trying to pick up a baby squirrel and take it up to its nest in another incident.

‘They were panicking,’ he said, adding he has also seen ‘big fights’ between formations of parakeets and crows in a big eucalyptus tree nearby, and the crows always win: ‘They take no prisoners.’ 

But Stewart defended the corvids, saying ‘you can’t not like them’. 

Though nobody wants to be attacked from the skies, many on the road are sympathetic to the birds, who are just trying to live alongside their human neighbours.

Sales assistant Alcia Williams, 37, has been following media reports about the attacks but said: ‘I don’t really find them scary.

‘If anything, I’ve always admired them building their nests.

‘Maybe we’re the ones interfering with their habitat.’

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