Texas bird video misrepresented as ominous scene in Tel Aviv
- Published on April 2, 2026 at 21:37
- 2 min read
- By Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
A video spread across social media platforms has been claimed to show a murder of crows swarming Tel Aviv in March 2026, a supposed bad omen as the war triggered by US-Israeli strikes on Iran stretched into its second month. But an AFP investigation found the scene dates to February 2023 and shows a flock of birds at a Best Buy parking lot in Waco, Texas.
"Huge numbers of crows in Tel Aviv stormed the area for more hell to come. The situation in Israel is terrifying in every respect," says a March 25, 2026 post on X.
Similar posts circulated across X and other platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok and YouTube -- including in Spanish and Arabic.
The United Kingdom's Jim Ferguson, a former Brexit Party parliamentary candidate whom AFP has repeatedly fact-checked for spreading disinformation, amplified the video. "Unusual scenes over Tel Aviv," he wrote, calling it an "eerie sight."
The posts came as the war enveloping the Middle East, which began February 28 with US-Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader and has seen Tehran fire waves of retaliatory missiles on Israel and other Gulf nations, entered its second month.
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned April 2 that the conflict risked spiraling into a wider war and called for an immediate halt to attacks from all sides.
But the posts claiming a murder of crows overwhelmed Tel Aviv, bringing bad luck to the city, are misrepresenting old footage unrelated to the war.
Texas, 2023
Reverse image searches surfaced a longer version of the same video shared on Instagram in various 2024 posts that described the scene as a "crow swarm in Texas" (archived here and here). Keyword searches across social media then uncovered an earlier iteration dated February 3, 2023 on TikTok (archived here).
The original TikTok post included the hashtags "#crowsoftexas" and "#southforwinter," though comments from other users suggested the animals could have been grackles, flocking birds native to North and South America that are commonly mistaken for crows.
The license plate on a Chevrolet vehicle briefly legible in the footage is registered to Texas, confirming the video was filmed in the southern US state.
AFP further corroborated the location by reviewing the TikTok account's other posts, which include clips showing an American football field in Midway, Texas.
Searching Google Maps for large grocery and department stores in and around Midway, AFP proceeded to match the parking lot, utility poles and a storefront partially visible in the original bird video to Google Street View imagery of a Best Buy retail location in Waco, Texas (archived here and here).
AFP previously debunked similar narratives falsely claiming birds swarmed other parts of the world around the outset of the coronavirus pandemic.
AFP has debunked additional misinformation about the Middle East war here.
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