diff --git a/_git_hooks/pre-commit b/_git_hooks/pre-commit
index 3ba59e0a..664a06ce 100755
--- a/_git_hooks/pre-commit
+++ b/_git_hooks/pre-commit
@@ -8,7 +8,10 @@ FLAKE8="`git rev-parse --show-toplevel`/bin/flake8"
 
 status=0
 
-git diff --unified=1 --cached HEAD -- '*py' > $TMPDIFF
+# select only changed python files which are not migrations
+changed=`git diff --cached --name-only | grep 'py$' | grep -v 'migrations/[0-9]'`
+
+git diff --unified=1 --cached HEAD -- $changed > $TMPDIFF
 
 # only do the check when there are some changes to be commited
 # otherwise flake8 would hang waiting for input
diff --git a/_git_hooks/update b/_git_hooks/update
index 2ac082c1..c700a1b1 100755
--- a/_git_hooks/update
+++ b/_git_hooks/update
@@ -27,7 +27,15 @@ TMPDIFF=`tempfile`
 
 [ $refname != "refs/heads/master" -a $refname != "refs/heads/stable" ] && exit 0
 
-git diff --unified=1 $oldrev $newrev -- '*.py' >${TMPDIFF}
+# select only changed python files which are not migrations
+changed=`git diff --name-only $oldrev $newrev | grep 'py$' | grep -v 'migrations/[0-9]'`
+if [ -z $changed ] ; then
+    # Nothing to check. Note the exit is necessary -- we would not pass any
+    # paths to git diff below and it would output the diff unfiltered.
+    exit 0
+fi
+
+git diff --unified=1 $oldrev $newrev -- $changed >${TMPDIFF}
 
 # there is no working tree in bare git repository, so we recreate it for flake8
 git archive $newrev | tar -x -C ${TMPDIR}