Crow -ning the trees - Corvus corone

[ladylouise62]

I am assuming these to be Rooks. There were about 15 in total of groups of 3.. making one hell of a racket The single one was practising for his part-time Christmas job on the top of a Christmas tree


*****AMENDMENT - although I initially decided that these were Rooks, the consensus here seems to be that they are Crows.

[rolf]

Yes, think they are, although I always find it difficult identifying them from a distance.

[Catherine]

I thought they were Carrion Crows - before I read the text!

It is difficult to tell the difference rom a silhouette when you can't see the grey beaks...

(I like the 'fairy' though - whatever he is!)

[ladylouise62]

I have to admit Catherine that I did first think 'crows' but when I looked up really close the beak did seem to be lighter. Also, his lot were being very social, (i.e. they were arguing a lot .

Anyway - just to get your input - this is a close-up shot, which seems to show paler beaks... of course the quality isn't brilliant. Any thoughts?

[Catherine]

I still could not tell, Louise, though, comparing them to Rook pics on Google, they have finer beaks than Rooks normally have,

I'd go with whatever you saw at the time though, because I'm sure you had a better view then!

[ladylouise62]

Unfortunately they were very high up so I saw no better than the photos I have. One of the things that made me think of Rooks is that I was under the impression that crows weren't as social as this... but thinking about it, it's Spring, so there may be 'reasons' for getting together
I agree that the beaks seem a little too fine, but to me they looked quite definitely paler which would rule crows out, and they don't look quite curved enough (but to be fair, the curve isn't that mush more on a Crow)... but I am quite happy to be 'overruled', I wasn't 100% convinced with my ID anyway. I'll put it to the ID thread.