Crows have destroyed my lawn

[B91]

For several weeks crows have been pecking at my front lawn, tearing out the grass and moss. I've just spent two days raking it all off with a wire tine rake and can now see that there are several large patches where all grass has disappeared and the rest looks severely battered. Oddly though, there is a circular area under a crab apple tree about 7m across which is untouched and looking very healthy, and the lawn to the rear of the house is completely untouched. Both lawns are fed and weeded regularly in the growing season though the back lawn, the untouched one, has a bad case of thatch. The front lawn is far healthier and had good growth and colour all of last summer. The guys who do the treatments advised me last year that the larvae of daddy long legs can destroy a lawn by eating the roots and advised treatment which I declined, though his advice was in relation to the back lawn, the untouched one. Crows are quite recent in our garden though magpies have been around for some years. What can I do?

 

[cjard]

Get a cat, an air rifle, fine mesh or wait til they've finished ripping the moss out for you and seed it with grass and keep it short (not so good of a nest building material)

Personally, I'd leave them to it. Humans build houses using materials scavenged from a crow's habitat, it's hypocrisy to not allow a bit of quid pro quo. I've currently got a variety of bird life dismantling my carefully stuffed insulating wool on my building site, hopefully I'll get the plasterboards up before the lot is raided

 

[Deleted2797112]

The birds are most likely after chafer beetle larvae living under your lawn. The RHS has advice on dealing with the grubs which should also deal with the birds.

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=487

 

[r896neo]

Be very wary of greenthumb or the like selling you a leatherjacket treatment. In my experience they will suggest it for almost any unknown lawn problem and its very rarely correct but they make a good mark up on it.

My father in law had fairy rings (fungal issue) probably caused by greenthumb's massive overfeeding of the lawn and telling him to water it constantly. They ruined his lawn and then had the cheek to offer spraying for leatherjackets claiming that was the problem??

Its perhaps just a coincidence that there is no chargeable treatment they could offer for fairy rings but they just so happened to sell leatherjacket treatments.