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This crow’s valiant attempt to remove bird spikes from its perch has become symbolic of nature fighting back against humans.

Crows are known for their problem-solving and this one nearly managed to dislodge an entire row of spikes with just its beak.

The little bird was filmed fighting the good fight above an old bank building in Macclesfield by Elisabeth Hobbes.

She said it’s a shame to see humans ‘effectively ridding urban environments of wildlife’.


‘It makes town centres much poorer environments for everyone,’ she told metro.co.uk.

This crow is fighting the good fight

‘It was great to see the crow not having any of it. I’ve just come back from France and noticed how much more alive the cities were with birdsong.



‘There should be a way for all species to coexist. The environment doesn’t belong to humans alone.’

Ecologist Hugh Warwick said the spikes ‘represent an inability of humans to share’.

He told metro.co.uk: ‘We can’t know what’s going on inside the crow’s head. That’s one of the great mysteries of the natural world.

‘However, crows, and all the corvids from ravens down to jackdaws, are fantastically intelligent and problem-solving birds.

These bird spikes were fitted onto a tree in Oxford (Picture: Hugh Warwick)

‘They can be trained to do an awful lot of tricks and tamed if you get them young.

‘This crow was solving a problem. The problem is its perching spot has been blocked and it was removing a blockage.‘

Mr Warwick took some pictures recently of spikes fitted onto trees in Oxford to stop birds pooing on cars.

He added: ‘The spikes really hammer home the idea that we’re desperate to keep wildlife away from us.

‘There can be good reasons to keep bird poo off buildings because it can corrode, but the idea of nature fighting back is absolutely delightful.

‘One of the greatest successes of civilisation has been the befuddlement of humanity into thinking we are not nature, but we are all part of nature and without a healthy ecosystem everything else is completely ruined.

‘Never mind about the economy or Brexit or whatever, without a healthy ecosystem, all of these things mean nothing.’

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