Jackdaw
Corvus monedula
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The small grey-hooded crow with pale eyes that nests in your chimney and knows exactly what you are doing.
The smallest of our common crows: sooty black with a distinctly grey nape and cheeks, and startling pale silver-white eyes that give it a very direct expression. Jackdaws are everywhere in Dumfries — church towers, chimney pots, old walls, mature parkland trees — and are usually seen in pairs within a larger flock, because they pair for life and stay together within the group.
Behaviour
Jackdaws nest in cavities and will pack a chimney with a remarkable quantity of sticks. They are highly intelligent and unusually attentive to where other animals, including people, are looking — a trait more often associated with mammals. Flocks feed on pasture and playing fields, and gather in noisy pre-roost assemblies in winter, often mixed with rooks, with a sharp 'chack' call that gives them their name.
When to see it
Quick facts
- Family
- Crows (Corvidae)
- Size
- 34 cm · smallest of our common crows
- UK status
- Green-listed
Photo by hedera.baltica from Wrocław, Poland, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons