What should I do with the dead crows

The old saying isn't strictly true around here anymore. We have several large flocks of crows in the area, often intermingling with the rooks. A look through the binos the other day revealed 40+ crows feeding on the maize stubble with the rooks. One wood hosts around 30 flock-crows all summer long. The won't larsen and are very ladder-trap wary. I shoot a few each year but the flock seems to stay pretty much the same size season to season.
 
Its surprising how many shooters do not know a Rook from a Crow here in the south, more than 2 birds will normally be Rooks which are naturally gregarious and live in Rookeries whereas Crows are normally to be found in pairs. A pair of Crows will usually be territorial and live together in a single roofed nest (wait until she is sitting on eggs then take her out along with the nest at dusk)
A crow has a dark beak, dark beak=dark heart, the Rook has a grey beak. Crows will hunt out miles of hedgerows taking eggs, fledglings, nesting game birds etc. They will perch for hours in an old dead tree watching for nesting bird coming and going from the nest. The poor old Rook is often painted the villain yet feeds mainly on Leatherjackets from pastureland, sprouting and ears of maize etc, they do damage to crops but easily dissuaded by hanging a few dead ones on sticks in the fields affected.

regards WB

Mature rooks can be mistaken for crows as they have black beaks and don't have the bare face of a mature rook
rooks have a blue sheen to their feathers, crows are a deeper black.
 
Mature rooks can be mistaken for crows as they have black beaks and don't have the bare face of a mature rook
rooks have a blue sheen to their feathers, crows are a deeper black.

In your part of the country you have Corvids not seen down here, that's why I put "here in the South" I would probably be hard pushed to ID some of yours.

regards WB
 
While having a quick tea break I had a look for some information on telling the corvids apart and found the video below. I found it useful so I thought I would share in case others can learn from it:

 
Crow Recipe Pluck and draw the crow, then take a fire brick on which you place a thick bacon rasher. Place dressed crow on top of bacon, wrap all in aluminium foil then into the oven. Cook for 40 minutes at 180 deg. C.

Remove from oven, discard the crow and eat the brick!

best post in a long time!! :rofl:
 
Many years ago the crow and the rook did rather stick by the rules and singles were more often than not crows, in numbers they were rooks. It's very different here now, I shoot a lot of corvids coming into a maize silage clamp and there is almost a 50/50 mix. far more crows about than there ever used to be.
 
In your part of the country you have Corvids not seen down here, that's why I put "here in the South" I would probably be hard pushed to ID some of yours.

regards WB

Not that different we have Ravens, but you also have them in the South in some places Tower of London for one
by far the biggest member of the crow family and not easily mistaken.

We also have hoodie crows similar to carrion crows but with a lot of grey on them again can't really be mistaken for anything else, hoodies and carrion crows are very closely related , in fact they be nothing more than a regional
variation, in areas where the Highlands and Lowlands meet it quite common to see a nesting pair where one is a hoodie and one a carrion.
 
Its surprising how many shooters do not know a Rook from a Crow here in the south, more than 2 birds will normally be Rooks which are naturally gregarious and live in Rookeries whereas Crows are normally to be found in pairs. A pair of Crows will usually be territorial and live together in a single roofed nest (wait until she is sitting on eggs then take her out along with the nest at dusk)
A crow has a dark beak, dark beak=dark heart, the Rook has a grey beak. Crows will hunt out miles of hedgerows taking eggs, fledglings, nesting game birds etc. They will perch for hours in an old dead tree watching for nesting bird coming and going from the nest. The poor old Rook is often painted the villain yet feeds mainly on Leatherjackets from pastureland, sprouting and ears of maize etc, they do damage to crops but easily dissuaded by hanging a few dead ones on sticks in the fields affected.

regards WB
That old saying doesn't ring true any more. Seen hundreds of crows feeding with jackdaws, very common sight nowadays. They might not nest in colonies like Rooks, but feed together. Agree they do good eating leather jackets, and don't think they're a big predator of eggs and young birds, but on fresh drillings, do some real damage. Also they don't have a roofed nest, think your thinking of Magpies!
 
Not that different we have Ravens, but you also have them in the South in some places Tower of London for one
by far the biggest member of the crow family and not easily mistaken.

Lol! We have them EVERYWHERE down here now. I know of friends down in Devon where they were feeding as many Ravens as Pheasants in some of their cover plots.
The outdoor pig farms are one of the biggest magnets for them in this area.
 
We have thousands of crows down here. Nothing to see 30 + carrions on our local sportsfield whilst I am playing football with the kids. Huge mixed communal roosts of Carrions, rooks and Jackdaws, thousands come into one wood I used to shoot.

There is an art to decoying carrions, which i havent got but mate from Shropshire has it down to a fine art.

D
 
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