4 February 2024
Any day with a crow in it is stuffed with promise.
— Crows: Encounters with the Sensible Guys, via Candace Savage
Crows are a favourite theme of mine so I used to be happy that we encountered Africa’s maximum not unusual crow at just about each and every birding website on our commute in southern Africa. We noticed just one Corvus species — the pied crow (Corvus albus) — that wears a white vest.
Pied crows are intermediate in dimension between crows and ravens and are intently sufficient associated with Africa’s dwarf raven, the Somali crow, that they may be able to hybridize. On the other hand their conduct is nearer to that of American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos).
Wikipedia says the similar of either one of them.
The pied crow‘s conduct is extra conventional of the Eurasian carrion crow.
American crows are the New Global counterpart to the carrion crow and the hooded crow of Eurasia. All of them occupy the similar ecological area of interest.
Each are good and inquisitive.
The pied crow’s voice is intermediate between crow and raven.
In most cases we noticed just one or two crows at a time with the exception of at break of day once they left their roost. Then my perfect rely used to be 8.
The principle distinction between pied and American crows seems to be that pied crows don’t migrate and are much less gregarious. So far as I do know they by no means mixture into large flocks.
Africans can be stunned, and in all probability horrified, to look Pittsburgh’s flock of 20,000 American crows in wintry weather.
(footage from Wikimedia Commons)