ravens attacking lawn and leaving patches

Having animals tear up turf is indeed a classic sign of grubs. If you want to kill the grubs now, per Steveo's advice, Dylox is the recommended agent. Next year, apply one of the season long grub controls. Or if you want to go the organic route, you can try nematodes, though I think they take a couple seasons to be effective.

and

Impossible to answer without knowing climate where you're located or how many of these spots you have covering what size area, etc. Guessing and it sounds like you're in the UK, so you probably can still seed. Normally, I'd use a slice seeder for any larger work, but if the turf has limited roots, that would probably do more damage to the grass that's left, so I'd probably do it by hand.

But then aren't you poisoning the crows too?

Hi Simon

The ravens are most likely to be digging for 'chafer grubs

The damage can be repaired either with turf or by overseeding. See will still germinate before winter, but if the temperatures ar consistently below 12 degrees C then you'd be best waiting until sprin to overseed

-- Helen R

No.

I'm no expert on using nematodes to kill grubs, but from what I think is correct, I see a couple of problems with this.

Nematodes are most effective when the grubs are still very small, which would have been a couple months ago, like Jul/Aug. Second, if he's having extensive turf damage from animals right now, he's looking at 2-3 weeks of more damage, unitl the nematodes work, if they will work at all this late in season. While I think nematodes can be fine for prevention, I think at this stage, he needs something quick and powerful, ie insecticide.

thanks for some very good advice, you have given me somewhere to start

lets hope we can solve this

-- simon garfield