Hooded Crow
| Irish Name: | Caróg liath |
| Scientific name: | Corvus cornix |
| Bird Family: | Crows |
green
Conservation status
Conservation status
Status
Common resident throughout Ireland.
Identification
Slightly larger than a Rook. Ages and sexes are similar in appearance. The head, throat and breast are black, as are the wings and tail. The rest of the body can appear either a rather cold grey or buffish grey-brown depending on the light. Flight action when relaxed is rather weak, however is quick to pursue raptors from nest site. Frequently glides and performs aerobatics on windy days.
Voice
A variety of loud calls, including a harsh “kraa”, as well as a repeated knocking sound which acts as a “song”.
Diet
Omnivorous - including seeds, insects, carrion, young birds and eggs. In coastal areas, will take crabs and molluscs, which may be dropped from a height to crack the hard shell.
Breeding
A widespread and common breeding species in most habitats in Ireland.
Wintering
Largely sedentary within their territories, though large flocks may gather in the evenings at traditional post-breeding roost sites.
Monitored by
Very common and widespread in Ireland.
Resident all year round.
Blog posts about this bird
Must Be the Season of the Corvid
Maybe it’s the Raven’s ominous ‘Nevermore’, the attacking crows in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, or the fact that a flock of crows is called a ‘murder' — no group of birds quite encapsulate Halloween like Corvids. Although Corvids don’t deserve the bad rap they are given, their curious behavior and haunting caws don’t help their case in the court of public opinion. Instead of feeling haunted by your neighborhood Magpie this spooky season, learn more about some of our common Irish Corvids and how to tell them apart.
As our largest songbird, Ravens are slightly larger than Buzzards. Adults show an all-black, glossy plumage with shaggy throat feathers. They have thick, black beaks that help their varied diet. Like other members of the crow family, Ravens are incredibly intelligent and have been known to engage in playful behaviour, such as flipping upside down with closed wings. They are social birds, and young Ravens can be found roosting together in large groups during the winter. In flight, they can be identified by their wedge-shaped tail. Bonus fact, Ravens often only have one mate for life!
Hooded Crows may be one of the easiest crows to identify, thanks to their unmistakable grey body and black head, throat, wings, and tail. These crows are also incredibly intelligent and have been recorded using crafty methods to crack open nuts, such as placing the nut on the road and waiting for a car to break the shell.
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And, of course, no Irish Corvid list would be complete without the Magpie. Unlike the other species listed above, Magpies have a splash of colour in their plumage. Their head, chest, back, and tail are black while their belly and flanks are white. In the right light, you can discern a green and blue gloss on their wings and tail. Juvenile birds are very similar to adults but lack the long tail, which takes a while to grow!
Raven
As our largest songbird, Ravens are slightly larger than Buzzards. Adults show an all-black, glossy plumage with shaggy throat feathers. They have thick, black beaks that help their varied diet. Like other members of the crow family, Ravens are incredibly intelligent and have been known to engage in playful behaviour, such as flipping upside down with closed wings. They are social birds, and young Ravens can be found roosting together in large groups during the winter. In flight, they can be identified by their wedge-shaped tail. Bonus fact, Ravens often only have one mate for life!
Raven
Rook
Besides being smaller than a Raven, a distinctive clue to identifying adult Rooks is the bare, pale base of the bill and shaggy feathers on the thighs that makes them appear to have trousers. Rooks are one of Ireland’s most common birds and can be seen across the island, nesting in noisy colonies called rookeries. When separating Hooded Crows and Rooks in flight, Rooks have faster and deeper wingbeats, which makes it look as if they are making more effort than the Hooded Crow.Hooded Crow
Hooded Crows may be one of the easiest crows to identify, thanks to their unmistakable grey body and black head, throat, wings, and tail. These crows are also incredibly intelligent and have been recorded using crafty methods to crack open nuts, such as placing the nut on the road and waiting for a car to break the shell.
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Hooded Crow
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Jackdaw
Smaller than the other species here, the Jackdaw has a short black bill and a pale, silvery eye. Like the Hooded Crow, Jackdaws have a black and grey contrast between the head and throat, but it is much less drastic. They are widespread across Ireland, but are less common in the mountainous areas of the west. During roosting season, Jackdaws can be found in the company of other crows, especially Rooks. They practically say their own name with the sharp 'chack' of their call.Magpie
And, of course, no Irish Corvid list would be complete without the Magpie. Unlike the other species listed above, Magpies have a splash of colour in their plumage. Their head, chest, back, and tail are black while their belly and flanks are white. In the right light, you can discern a green and blue gloss on their wings and tail. Juvenile birds are very similar to adults but lack the long tail, which takes a while to grow! 
Magpie
Q & A with Brian Burke - Project Manager of the Little Tern Project in Kilcoole
Marine Policy Officer, Rosalind Skillen, speaks to Little Tern Project Manager, Brian Burke about the The Little Tern Conservation Project in Kilcoole.
This is a National Parks and Wildlife Service project which is managed by Birdwatch Ireland. It is by far the largest Little Tern colony in Ireland, having grown from under fewer than 20 nesting pairs in the 1980s to 274 pairs in 2024.
Can you tell us a bit about Little Terns, the species you work to protect?
Little Terns are fantastic little birds. They weigh around 50g, so around half the size of a Blackbird. Terns were historically known as ‘sea swallows’ as they have a shape similar to a Swallow, with long pointed wings and forked tails, but are white and ‘marine’ in nature like a gull. These tiny little birds migrate to West Africa in the winter, and return to a number of out-of-the-way sand and shingle beaches around the Irish coast to try and raise their young. As seabirds that rely on a diet of fish, they’re excellent ecosystem indicators to give us an idea of what goes on beneath the waves. If Little Terns are doing well and raising young successfully, it must mean that the sea around their colony has enough fish to support them.
Have you noticed any changes in populations or behaviours over the years?
The biggest change has been the numbers at the Kilcoole colony. We now have by far the biggest colony of Little Terns in Ireland, and one of the biggest in all of Ireland and the UK, and that’s thanks to many years of conservation efforts by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and BirdWatch Ireland. I think it’s a real testament to long-term funding and long-term efforts. Sometimes it can take a few years for your efforts to be rewarded, but when it comes to scarce and declining species, we need to stick with it. We still have occasional bad years at Kilcoole, but importantly we now have many more good years than bad and the Kilcoole and east coast population as a whole are growing.
How do you involve the local community at Kilcoole?
The local community in Kilcoole are fantastic every year. They’re always delighted to see the Terns back, and indeed are sometimes concerned towards the end of April when we haven’t got all our fencing up yet! Something as simple as people walking on the beach, and letting dogs off leashes, are some of the biggest threats to Little Terns but everyone at Kilcoole is very happy to steer clear of the nesting area once the terns are back, and that makes a big difference. There’s a real sense of pride in Kilcoole around having these birds pick here to nest, and there’s a ‘Little Tern Playground’ in Kilcoole and one of the schools even has terns on their crest! Ultimately, many conservation problems are people problems rather than ecological problems. We know what most species need to thrive, but we need public buy-in to actually provide it. Thankfully the local community at Kilcoole are incredibly supportive.
What are the biggest threats to Little Terns in Kilcoole?
The biggest threats are predators, and waves. A single fox, or a determined Hooded Crow, Rook or Mink, could do a huge amount of damage in a very short space of time to a colony like this. Unfortunately in recent decades we’ve made the Irish landscape perfect for ‘mesopredators’ like these, and much less suitable for specialist species like the Little Tern. So we try and restore that balance on the beach at Kilcoole to give the Terns a chance. Similarly though, windy days, combined with a high tide can spell disaster for the colony and we’ve had huge amounts of eggs and chicks washed away in a couple of hours. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do to stop the sea swell when conditions are like that, and with climate change and stormier and more unpredictable weather each summer it's something we’re going to keep seeing in the years ahead.
What can we do to support your work?
I think the Kilcoole Little Tern conservation project is a fantastic example of what can be achieved with long-term funding and continued efforts to address conservation problems and develop expertise over time. Kilcoole wasn’t an immediate success, but over time we’ve worked closely with NPWS to address the issues the birds face and to get to the stage where we have more good years than bad years. I think we need more protected sites, offshore and onshore, and we need to get plans and resources in place to reverse the biodiversity declines that are happening. Monitoring is important too – we need to know what we have, where we have it, and how it’s changing over time. The only way we’ll know if protection and conservation efforts are working is with continued monitoring. And importantly, we need to start now – there’s no time to waste!
[Photos 1-3: Brian Burke; Photo 4 (Ringing Photo): Oonagh Duggan]
The Kilcoole Little Tern Project is an NPWS project run by BirdWatch Ireland under a competitive tender agreement in 2024.
Have you noticed any changes in populations or behaviours over the years?
The biggest change has been the numbers at the Kilcoole colony. We now have by far the biggest colony of Little Terns in Ireland, and one of the biggest in all of Ireland and the UK, and that’s thanks to many years of conservation efforts by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and BirdWatch Ireland. I think it’s a real testament to long-term funding and long-term efforts. Sometimes it can take a few years for your efforts to be rewarded, but when it comes to scarce and declining species, we need to stick with it. We still have occasional bad years at Kilcoole, but importantly we now have many more good years than bad and the Kilcoole and east coast population as a whole are growing.
How do you involve the local community at Kilcoole?
The local community in Kilcoole are fantastic every year. They’re always delighted to see the Terns back, and indeed are sometimes concerned towards the end of April when we haven’t got all our fencing up yet! Something as simple as people walking on the beach, and letting dogs off leashes, are some of the biggest threats to Little Terns but everyone at Kilcoole is very happy to steer clear of the nesting area once the terns are back, and that makes a big difference. There’s a real sense of pride in Kilcoole around having these birds pick here to nest, and there’s a ‘Little Tern Playground’ in Kilcoole and one of the schools even has terns on their crest! Ultimately, many conservation problems are people problems rather than ecological problems. We know what most species need to thrive, but we need public buy-in to actually provide it. Thankfully the local community at Kilcoole are incredibly supportive.
What are the biggest threats to Little Terns in Kilcoole?
The biggest threats are predators, and waves. A single fox, or a determined Hooded Crow, Rook or Mink, could do a huge amount of damage in a very short space of time to a colony like this. Unfortunately in recent decades we’ve made the Irish landscape perfect for ‘mesopredators’ like these, and much less suitable for specialist species like the Little Tern. So we try and restore that balance on the beach at Kilcoole to give the Terns a chance. Similarly though, windy days, combined with a high tide can spell disaster for the colony and we’ve had huge amounts of eggs and chicks washed away in a couple of hours. Unfortunately there’s nothing you can do to stop the sea swell when conditions are like that, and with climate change and stormier and more unpredictable weather each summer it's something we’re going to keep seeing in the years ahead.
What can we do to support your work?
I think the Kilcoole Little Tern conservation project is a fantastic example of what can be achieved with long-term funding and continued efforts to address conservation problems and develop expertise over time. Kilcoole wasn’t an immediate success, but over time we’ve worked closely with NPWS to address the issues the birds face and to get to the stage where we have more good years than bad years. I think we need more protected sites, offshore and onshore, and we need to get plans and resources in place to reverse the biodiversity declines that are happening. Monitoring is important too – we need to know what we have, where we have it, and how it’s changing over time. The only way we’ll know if protection and conservation efforts are working is with continued monitoring. And importantly, we need to start now – there’s no time to waste!
[Photos 1-3: Brian Burke; Photo 4 (Ringing Photo): Oonagh Duggan]
The Kilcoole Little Tern Project is an NPWS project run by BirdWatch Ireland under a competitive tender agreement in 2024.
