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  Profile

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  In flight

Clever Corvids

Hooded Crow

Corvus cornix

• rare
• 55 km/h
• Least Concern

Carrion Crow's gray-jacketed cousin. Splits the continent right down the middle, hybridizing along a narrow seam.

Population

Several million individuals; European population roughly estimated at 14-34 million birds (~3 million breeding territories excluding Russia)

Habitat

Open and semi-open country - farmland, moorland, coastal cliffs and shorelines, river valleys, parks, and urban/suburban areas; nests in tall trees, cliff ledges, old buildings, and pylons

Fun fact

Hooded Crows crack open molluscs and crabs by dropping them from the air onto rocks, and they habitually stash surplus food in gutters, flowerpots, and soil to retrieve later.

Range

Northern, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (including Scotland and Ireland, where it is the resident crow form), Russia, the Caucasus, Turkey, the Levant, Iraq, Iran, Egypt (Nile Delta), and Cyprus

Diet

Omnivorous scavenger: carrion, invertebrates (including molluscs and crabs, which it drops from the air to crack open), eggs and nestlings of other birds, small mammals, grain, and human food scraps; caches surplus food for later use

Size

0.5 m

Wingspan

1.05 m

Lifespan

17 years