Carrion Crow: how to recognise it
A bird of Europe, Africa and Asia. Learn the marks that make it easy to identify, then practise with real photographs in Lore.
Practise with real photosAll species guides
Photo © cello caruso-turiello · CC BY · iNaturalist · all photo credits
- Scientific name
- Corvus corone
- Family
- Crows, Jays, and Magpies
- Size
- About 47 cm
- Habitat
- Farmland, parks, towns and coasts
- Found in
- Europe, Africa and Asia
The key marks
All black, glossy, with a thick black bill fully feathered at the base. Rook has a bare greyish-white face and a thinner, more pointed bill; Raven is much bigger with a wedge-shaped tail.
Voice
A hoarse, rolling 'kraa-kraa-kraa', often in threes.
Good to know
Crows can recognise individual human faces and remember people who threatened them.
Do not confuse with
Compare it with the Rook. Look at the marks above one by one rather than the overall colour, and practise telling the two apart with real photos.
Where and when
You can expect to find it in farmland, parks, towns and coasts. It is especially common in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan and Kyrgyzstan. Distribution changes with the seasons and from year to year, so check a recent local observation source before you go looking.