PUPILS are having to take cover from a crow that divebombs them at school.

The bird swoops on children as they play at St Mary’s RC Primary School, in Sunderland.

Parents and pupils have been tormented by the bird since early last month.

The school is employing a number of techniques, including putting up pictures of birds of prey, in an attempt to ward off the crow.

Headteacher Sean Brown, 55, said: “It is a very social bird and seems to like being around children as it has been swooping at them and sometimes landing on their heads. The bird hasn’t injured anybody, but it has unsettled some pupils.

“We have sometimes kept pupils in if we have seen the bird and, on a couple of occasions, shortened breaktimes.”

A spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds said: “It will be protecting what it views as its territory. It is very rare for birds of this type to actually harm anyone.”