u/bonfirepotato

Hello Crow friends and enthusiasts!

I am by no means a crow hater or anything, just looking for some advice: On our balcony, there is a shelf that has been chosen by several wood pigeon couples since last year for nesting. However, it didn't take long until the local crows found out about it. Ever since, they will eat the eggs sooner or later.

I know this is nature's way, but this morning we witnessed the 4th wood pigeon couple losing their eggs, and are wondering if there is anything we can do to better hide the nesting spot from the crows?

I attached 3 photos for some context:

1st photo shows a construction my husband crafted, and the second couple understood the assignment well, as that's where they were supposed to build their nest. But they lost their eggs anyway.

In the 2nd photo, you can see an upgrade where we added this net-like thingy, so the construction is hidden. The pot on the left side had some seeds with tiny plants shooting out already in hopes of better coverage, buuuuuuuuut...

... as you can see in the last photo, the next couple went for the pot instead of the construction. And well, that's the couple that got its eggs eaten this morning.

For the next upgrade, I was suggesting a banner saying something like "Crow Buffet" but it was too soon for jokes like these for my husband 🫠 Any ideas what we could do here?

Last year, a wood pigeon couple nested on our balcony and successfully raised 2 chicks until another bird killed them shortly before they were ready to fly. After that, my husband built a small wooden structure to make the nesting spot feel more sheltered (photo #1).

This year, another couple used it, but after about 2 weeks, we found the nest in the state of photo #2, with both eggs probably eaten. As evidence, we found eggshells of one egg on the floor.

We then added more cover with the net-like thing in photo #3. We have even added a hose with a hand pump to water the seeds in the plant pot without disturbing any further nesting couple in hopes that once the plants grow, they will also block the view a bit more.

A new couple arrived, but chose the plant pot instead (photo #4). This morning, we saw a crow flying away with one egg in its beak while no parent bird was present. We checked and found the second egg had already been badly damaged. The pigeons had been incubating them for about 3 weeks.

One parent has returned shortly after the incident and is now sitting on the remaining broken egg 😢 However, the hole is so big and deep, we don't think the babybird survived...

We believe they will notice that all hope is lost today, pack up soon, and leave. Is there anything else we can do to make the spot safer or less visible to crows while still allowing the pigeons to come and go comfortably? We live on the 15th floor, so there are no other predators like cats or martens, only other birds.