Corvus cornix
A grey-cloaked crow that replaces the carrion crow in the north.
Size: 45-47 cm | Habitat: Farmland & Countryside Birds | Season: All year
The hooded crow shares the carrion crow's size and shape but wears a striking two-tone coat, with an ash-grey body set against a black head, wings, and tail. In Britain it is essentially a bird of Scotland, especially the Highlands and Islands.
Grey body with black head, wings and tail (unmistakable pattern) · same size and shape as carrion crow · found mainly in Scottish Highlands, Hebrides, and Northern Isles · rare vagrant further south and east in England · hybridises with carrion crow in a narrow zone across Scotland
Hooded crows behave much like carrion crows, feeding omnivorously on carrion, invertebrates, and scraps, and nesting in trees or on crags. Where their ranges meet in Scotland, the two forms interbreed freely, producing intermediate hybrids.
Carrion crow and hooded crow are now widely treated as separate species, split largely on the strength of a narrow hybrid zone across Scotland where the two forms meet but only mix to a limited degree — a classic case study in ongoing speciation.
The Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) is essentially the carrion crow's northern counterpart: for most of Scotland, Ireland, and the Isle of Man, it is the local crow, while carrion crow takes over almost entirely once you cross into England and Wales. It's genuinely scarce or absent as a breeder across most of England, so this is very much a species for a Highland or island trip rather than a garden tick.
Where the two forms' ranges overlap, in a narrow band across Scotland, they interbreed and produce visibly intermediate hybrids — part grey, part black, in varying proportions. This hybrid zone is one of the most-studied examples of incomplete species separation in European ornithology, and is part of why the taxonomic status of hooded vs carrion crow has shifted back and forth between 'race' and 'full species' over the decades.
Including the hooded crow in this journal is a useful reminder that 'common British bird' can mean very different things depending on where in Britain you're standing.
🟢 Conservation status: Green (UK Birds of Conservation Concern 5)
Green-listed, with a stable population across its Scottish, Hebridean, and Northern Isles range, and no significant cause for conservation concern.