Crow attacks mothers near school

Three women have been attacked by the crow

Parents are in a flap after a crow has been swooping on three mothers at a Fife primary school.

The bird sits in trees near St Margaret's Roman Catholic Primary School in Dunfermline.

Those who have been attacked said it swooped down and dug its claws into their hair, flapping its wings.

One mother said it was like a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds. The school described the incident as "horrible".

Dee Forrester, 40, was attacked when she dropped off her daughter's violin at lunchtime.

"The next thing I knew something was flapping at my head and I felt claws digging into my scalp," she said.

Sinister-looking

"I screamed and started running as fast as I could.

"When I turned round, there was a big black crow sitting on the fence."

"It was really sinister-looking. Like something like from the Alfred Hitchcock movie The Birds."

Mrs Forrester, a mother of two, whose son Euan, six, is also a pupil at the school, was left with minor scratch marks on her head.

She added: "I will be wearing a hat from now on whenever I go to the school."

It seems to have lost its fear of humans and probably associates them with food. RSPB Scotland spokesman

A spokesperson from St Margaret's Primary said: "There have been three incidents now.

"In one of them, a woman had the crow completely tangled up in her hair, which must have been horrible."

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland said it was too early for the crow to have had chicks which it would be trying to protect.

He said: "It is almost unheard of for a crow to actually land on someone's head.

"It could be that this bird was once a captive crow which either escaped or was released.

"It seems to have lost its fear of humans and probably associates them with food. I'm sure it means no malice."