They're probably after leather jackets (daddy long-legs grubs) which are ready to emerge soon. Try looking in the garden centre to see if there's anything that will zap them.

Think yourself lucky you don't have foxes....my lawn looks like a battlefield at work with craters and holes everywhere !!!!!

There's a nematode solution you can order online for leatherjackets, but first, check that it is those by laying a sheet of polythene (preferably black) on a damp piece of lawn in the evening. Lift in the morning and you should see the grubs if its leatherjackets. There is no other lawn treatment for leatherjackets any more - google Nemesys and select the product you need, but check that it's not too late to use it this year - nematode solutions are effective only at certain temperatures.

Would the solution be to let the crows have at it until that food source has depleted? Seems to me that these guys are not only providing pest control but are also aerating your lawn in a natural way.

Well its a point of view, Loosestrife, but the trouble is, they rip up the turf in a very untidy manner rather than just making neat, aeration type holes...

I agree, let them feed. I have never treated my lawn with anything to kill grubs, I want to encourage wild life - but then again I am not interested in a bowling green lawn.

And just a little suggestion way off the point - if there are several of them they are more likely to be rooks than crows.(Rooks have pale bare beaks and feathery "shorts". Crows have dark beaks and neat much less feathery legs. - not that it makes any difference to your lawn...)The leather jackets should soon be hatching into daddy long legs anyway as Badfish says.

ugh, daddy long legs, I loathe and detest the blasted things... they always bumble about and crash into you when they get inside the house, they freak me out completely, they're like flying spiders...

They are, Bamboo, and I hate one in the room with me - and yet... They are so silly, they never seem able to look after themselves properly, and I find myself feeling so sorry for them!

I'm afraid my feeling of slight terror and complete revulsion overcomes any tender instincts like yours!

I don't mind them actually - at least they don't spin webs in the corners...