A video showing large flocks of crows flying over a few cars is being shared online with a misleading claim that it captures a recent scene from Israeli city Tel Aviv.
The video has gone viral amid the ongoing military conflict between US-Israel and Iran, sparking doomsday speculation across social media platforms.
We found that the video has been available online since January 2024, with posts identifying the location as Texas in the US.
The Claim
The video is being shared with the caption, "Huge numbers of crows in Tel Aviv stormed the area for more hell to come. The situation in Israel is terrifying in every respect."
Click here to view the post and here for an archive.
What We Found: Video Is Old and Unrelated
1. Video Available Online Since 2024: We broke the video into keyframes and traced a Reddit post from June 2024 featuring the same footage. The post included a caption stating the scene was from Texas in the United States. Following this lead, a related keyword search led us to another Instagram post from January 6, 2024, carrying the same video.
The video was uploaded with the caption, "1,000 crows swarms a Supermarket parking lot in Texas".
Click here to view an archive version of the post.
2. Related News Reports from Texas: A keyword search led us to multiple US-based reports covering the same bird activity in Texas. An article by Fox Weather dated January 4, 2024, reported, "Hundreds of birds descended on a Texas parking lot, creating a scene resembling a horror movie."
The report added that the blackbirds, known as great-tailed grackles, are commonly found in human-inhabited areas with trees and are especially widespread in the Houston area in Texas.