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Jackdaw

Corvus monedula

This is a medium to small dark crow which is very social. It has a more or less grey hood from the top of the head backwards down to the shoulders and a glittering pale eye. They are resident over most of their range which is most of Europe (except extreme North) and into Asia.

These birds happily live with Man even in the middle of large cities and like filling chimneys with sticks! The nesting territory is very small - just a few metres round the nest - and so they will often form semi-colonial aggregations (like 8 in my garden this year).

They are pretty well omnivorous but not nearly as bad for game as Carrion Crows. They will often fly round in pairs as the male 'mate-guards' his female to make sure that the nestlings he is going to help raise are all his own. Resounding calls are characteristic. There may be 600,000 pairs in Britain and Ireland.

A familiar small black crow.

The following Bird On! picture is available:

Jackdaw (35mm Colour Slide by Roger Tidman)

Length335 mm
Closed wing235 mm
Weight240 gms

A Bird On! Sketch by Chris Mead
Copyright © 1996 by Jacobi Jayne & Company and Chris Mead


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