Bird Sightings: Hooded Crow

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Bird Sightings : Hebrides : Hooded Crow

Hooded Crow

Corvus Corone

Gaelic: Feannag, Starrag

Photograph © Debbie Bozkurt
North Uist - Outer Hebrides (Western Isles)
7th February, 2006

Our Hooded Crow Photographs

hooded crow

hooded crow

hooded crow

hooded crow

hooded crow
playing ball!

AKA: Hoodie, Hoodiecrow, Militia Crow, Scotch Crow, Danish Crow, Denmarks, Norway Crow, Dun Crow, Grey-backed Crow, Winter Crow, Grey Crow, Corby, Corbie, Royston Crow, (Some of these are for the hooded or the carrion crow) Gaelic: Feannag, Starrag

Corvus cornix

Western Isles: Common Resident Breeder,

UK summer 214,000 pairs BTO

Distribution: (North & West) Scotland, Europe, Asia
Mostly bulky stick nests in tall trees, also cliff ledges (then uses seaweed in nest), buildings, pylons. Preferred breeding habitat: boggy areas

Diet: Omnivorous: Insects, grain, eggs (inc from puffin burrows), carrion, scraps (drops shellfish to break open)

Black and glossy head, throat, wings, tail & thighs. Otherwise contrasting ash-grey. Bill & legs black. Male largest otherwise sexes similar. Flight: slow, heavy, straight. Fledglings much blacker than parents. Juveniles duller plumage

listen to a hooded crow (RSPB site)

According to BTO there are only an annual average of 12 UK nest records for hoodies. I asked BTO if I had misunderstood something...

"probably not. Crows tend to breed at the tops of trees, so need real effort to record (and usually specialised equipment) and most breed in the north and west of scotland where we have few recorders, so I am not at all surprised it is so few. However, if you would like to contribute, I am sure we would be delighted to have more records ;-) If you would like furtherdetails, please get in touch with the nest records scheme nest.records@bto.org"

The hooded crow is very similar in structure and habit, and closely related to the carrion crow. Sometimes they interbreed, the hybrids showing mixed grey and black plumage.

Until recently hoodies were considered a geographical variation of carrion crows, in 2002 it was decided to separate the species because they do not interbreed frequently, and the hybrids (although fertile) lack vigour.

Hooded crows are one of the more sociable crow species and may often be seen in groups feeding together.

In the back issues of RSPB Birds magazine there is a series of articles about crow antics. Someone wrote about how they had seen a carrion crow pick up a piece of slate in it's beak, put it on the centre of their perspex skylight dome, jump on it and slide down SEVERAL TIMES.

Other local bird photographs

Debbie's online photo album

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