Norfolk woman 'held hostage' by birds attacking shop door

A pair of birds which squawk and peck at the door of a town shop have left the owner feeling she is being "held hostage".

Victoria Hunt said the feathered fiends first appeared at the pub and shop in North Tuddenham, Norfolk, on Monday.

They began pecking the door "every 10 minutes" from 04:00 BST, messing up the glass and being "so noisy", she said.

Mrs Hunt said the experience was "really weird" and she had seen nothing similar in her 14 years there.

The 47-year-old, who also lives at the premises near Dereham, said it was her daughter who first spotted the birds.

She said they were "outside the shop and flying at the shop door" and began pecking at the glass.

'Like a Hitchcock film'

"It was really strange: they also began sitting on the door handle and pecking along all the seals of the door," she said.

After an appeal on social media for help, it was suggested the birds were reacting to their own reflections.

The family tried placing posters in the glass door, but it had no effect on the pair.

Mrs Hunt said she believed the birds were crows, though others online have suggested they may be jackdaws.

The family have now placed plastic bags over the glass, which appears to have stopped the birds pecking and squawking.

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But Mrs Hunt said the birds were still coming to the door.

"They seem fairly tame, so what worries me is that is a public shop and are they going to come into the shop," she said.

She said one friend told her they had "lost two patio doors" to similar behaviour from birds, while another said it was "like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock film".

Mrs Hunt said she would try placing a model or toy owl behind door in an effort to scare the birds off before removing the plastic bags.