Jackdaw

The jackdaw (Corvus monedula) is like a small crow, and is a familiar visitor to gardens as well as being a common bird of British woods and farmland. Jackdaws are regular visitors to my own rural garden in central England, where they have learned to feed from items such as hanging fat balls, put out for much smaller birds. They are gregarious birds, often seen in colonies of varying sizes. They are found throughout the British Isles except for the Scottish Highlands.

Jackdaws are happy to associate with humans, and have in the past been kept as tame cage birds, although this is now illegal in the United Kingdom. Like other members of the crow family, they have a reputation as being thieves of shiny objects, and one has entered literature as the “Jackdaw of Rheims” in the poem by R. H. Barham (1788-1845) that stole a cardinal’s ring but ended up being canonized. None of the jackdaws in my locality have come close to sainthood yet!

Appearance

The jackdaw is around 33 centimetres (13 inches) long with a wingspan of up to 68 centimetres (26 inches). The plumage is slate-grey to black, and adult birds have a lighter grey nape (back of the head and neck). The bill is short. Males and females are very similar in appearance.

Breeding

Pairs start nest building in April or May in hollows and crevices, these being in old trees, abandoned buildings, church steeples, quarries, inland cliffs, etc. The nest is constructed from twigs and lined with hair, wool, straw or feathers. The clutch is usually five or six eggs which are incubated for up to 19 days. Both parents sit on the eggs in turn, although most of the work is done by the female (where have I heard that before?). Only one brood is raised per season.

Feeding and behaviour

After hatching, the young are fed at the nest for around a month, the diet being quite mixed and including insects, slugs, worms, small frogs, mice, and even the eggs and nestlings of other species. Adult birds also eat seeds, fruit and virtually anything edible that is left lying around by careless or generous humans. Being quite large for garden birds they tend to be clumsy feeders, and their stabbing action at the fat balls sends food flying in all directions, which is greatly appreciated by the smaller birds who gather the crumbs.

Young birds join the flock (a special name for a jackdaw flock is a “clattering”) as soon as they fledge, and then learn the tricks of the trade from older birds and each other. They are quite noisy birds, with a loud chattering call as they argue with each other. However, the high “chak” call may or may not be the reason for their name, as there is some debate about this.

© John Welford