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Carrion Crow | Corvus corone
Zwarte kraai | Corneja negra
The Carrion Crow is one species with two plumages. In western and southern Europe it is black from bill to tail; in northern, central and eastern Europe it wears an ash-grey mantle and belly against a black head, black wings and a black tail — the bird called Hooded Crow. This guide treats both forms as one species, Corvus corone; other checklists carry them as two, Corvus corone and Corvus cornix. In the field the label matters little: size, build, behaviour and voice are the same, only the plumage differs. In Iberia the grey form is a rarity, almost always seen on migration.
Voice
A hard, grating kraaa kraaa kraaa, usually in series of three or four with even gaps, often delivered with a deep bow of the whole front of the body. Also a hollow klok-klok between mates, a short rattling alarm and, in spring, a soft and varied muttering near the nest tree. Heard all year, loudest during territorial disputes in March and April. The black and grey forms sound alike: voice will not tell you which of the two is in front of you.
Recording: Sander Pieterse — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Identification
Both forms are the same heavy, compact crow of 44–51 cm, with a stout, slightly curved bill whose base is obviously feathered — the nasal bristles run well out along the upper mandible — a dark eye and a flat crown without a peak. In flight both show steady, shallow wingbeats, a nearly straight trailing edge to the wing and a short, square-cut tail. The black form is wholly black, with a green-blue gloss that shows only in full light. The grey form has head, throat, wings, tail and thighs glossy black and the rest of the body — mantle, back, breast and belly — pale ash-grey, with a sharp boundary along the black breast bib; in flight the grey reads as a pale saddle between two black wings. Juveniles of both are duller, washed brownish, with a blue-grey eye that darkens through the first autumn; young grey-form birds have dirtier, browner grey and at first a pale bill base. Where the two forms meet — a narrow belt running from the Scottish Highlands through Jutland and along the Elbe down to the southern fringe of the Alps — intermediates are the rule rather than the exception: black birds with a faint grey wash over flanks or mantle, grey birds with black flecking and uneven blotching through the grey, and everything between. Muddy or patchy grey is normal within that belt; well outside it, it is worth a longer look.
Confusion species
Rook is slimmer, with a more pointed, straighter bill and, in adults, a bare greyish-white face; it looks long-legged, with a peaked rear crown and baggy thigh feathering. Beware: young Rooks have no bare face yet and remain the real pitfall well into their first winter — then go by the pointed bill, the steeper forehead and the company the bird keeps. Jackdaw is far smaller, with a grey nape and a pale grey eye. At range it is Jackdaw that trips people up on the grey form, since both are two-toned — but the pale part sits at the wrong end: on Jackdaw the nape and hind-head are grey and the body dark, while on the Hooded Crow the head is black and the mantle and belly pale. Add that Jackdaw is a third smaller and shorter-billed, beats its wings faster and deeper, walks briskly with a trot, and calls a clear kya against the crow's unhurried gait and grating caw. Raven is much bigger, with a wedge-shaped tail and a deep cronk.
Habitat
Almost any open or half-open country with trees: arable land, pasture, hedge banks, river floodplains, dunes, landfills, motorway verges, city parks and housing estates. Nests singly in a bulky stick basket high in a tree or pylon, always well spaced from the next pair. Feeds on anything: worms, insects, eggs and nestlings, carrion, nuts, grain and human refuse. Across the north and east, where the grey form is the ordinary crow, the coast belongs firmly in that list: tidal flats and strandlines, where shells and crabs are dropped from height to break them, plus harbours, fish quays and muck heaps. In winter both forms follow the plough.
Where the bird is most at home, classified with EUNIS — the European standard for habitats.
Range and movements
The black form breeds in western and southern Europe: the island of Great Britain south of the Highlands, the mainland from the Pyrenees to the Elbe, the western and central Alps, the north-west of the Po plain and northern Iberia. The grey form breeds in Ireland, northern and western Scotland, Jutland and the Danish islands, central Europe east of the Elbe, Scandinavia, the Baltic region, eastern Europe, most of the Italian peninsula and the Balkans, and eastwards to the Middle East. Between them lies a narrow belt — from the Scottish Highlands through Jutland and the Elbe valley to the southern fringe of the Alps — where both forms breed together and most birds are intermediates. Along the southern North Sea coast the black form is very common all year, from the Wadden Sea to city centres, while the grey form was a routine winter visitor from the Baltic until the 1980s; milder winters and shorter migrations have made it scarce, chiefly along the Wadden coast. In Iberia the species is confined to the northern strip — the Cantabrian coast, Galicia, the Pyrenees and the northern Meseta — and is all but absent from Andalusia and the Mediterranean coast; the grey form is a vagrant there, with very few records.
- Resident
- Breeding (summer)
- Winter
- Passage
- dark = core range, pale = thinly spread
How and when to look
In March find a breeding pair in a row of poplars along a dyke and watch how the bird drops its head and chest deeply as it calls. To see the corvids side by side, visit a freshly ploughed field in winter with a mixed flock: Jackdaws walk small and briskly among the Rooks, while Carrion Crows usually stand apart in twos. For the grey form, November to March along the Wadden coast is the best chance — scan crow and Jackdaw flocks on saltmarsh and strandline for a pale saddle. To see it in numbers, take a winter city park in Ireland, Scotland or central Europe: in Dublin, Vienna, Budapest or Helsinki it simply walks between the strollers.
Conservation status
Not threatened (IUCN: Least Concern), and stable to increasing across most of Europe, helped by its move into towns and villages. In north-west Europe the black form is an ordinary breeding bird, though still shot locally under wildlife management schemes, and local swings track that management and the supply of carrion and waste. The grey form has declined locally in Ireland and north-west Scotland, and in places the belt of intermediates is shifting. In north-west Europe the biggest change is that the winter influx of grey birds from the east has largely fallen away.
Scientific name
Corvus corone | Linnaeus, 1758
Linnaeus described the species in 1758 and placed it straight away in the genus where it still stands. He introduced the genus Corvus in that same work. Corvus is the Latin word for 'raven'. corone comes from Greek korone 'crow'. The specimen the first description was based on came from England.