A crow is causing a couple sleepless nights by rapping on their windows until they get out of bed.

The bird's behaviour has baffled its victims, who have called it Wakey.

At dawn each day, the bird raps its beak on the windows of retired master mariner Captain Mike Sellars, 61, and his wife, Sue, at their home in Victoria Terrace, Saltburn, east Cleveland.

Mrs Sellars, 61, said: "It started about 7am. We heard this rapping and we couldn't work out where from.

"We were in bed and we just thought, it's not the door, where is it?

"My husband got up and saw the crow sitting on the landing windowsill. He brushed it away and came back to bed.

"Twenty minutes later, it was back on the landing window.

"My husband frightened it away and 20 minutes later, it was on the study window, going crazy.

"Every time we frightened it away it was going 'caw caw', really screaming.

"The following morning the same thing happened again, this time on our bedroom window."

Mrs Sellars added: "I don't know what is going on, whether it is a soul and someone is trying to get in touch, or whether it is just a mad crow. It is a bit of a mystery.

"My husband's threatening to shoot it."

Dave Hirst, a spokesman for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said: "Crows are very territorial birds and often when you see them interacting with windows, they have seen a reflection and that is why they start attacking the window. They think it is an intruder.

"It is hard to know why, but they don't do it for no reason, for the bird it will be a serious matter."