Why so many corvids in Ireland ?

See Ye

I'm just back (in France) from a week in the "sunny south east" and once again I was struck by the sheer volume of "crows" in Ireland. I've driven thro' Tipp town of an early morning when there seem to be crows on all the roof tops and gangs on the road itself; the in-laws live in a townland & it's not unusual to see crows on the feeder - jackdaws and rooks mainly but also hooded crow; saw a couple of crows over the beach at Bunmahon too.

Now we can argue that I notice the crows more than other birds because they are more conspicuous but in contrast my parents live in the British East Midlands and while they too are pretty much surrounded by agricultural farmland they are virtually crow-less. Jackdaws occasionally fill the chimney with twigs, the odd crow flies over ...

Any idea the reason for the high population densiy of crows in Ireland ? Is it linked to the relative paucity of birds of prey ? Distribution of human settlement ? Anything ?

Birdnuts

One of the reasons is a lack of birds of prey both in terms of numbers and species(another reason why recent incidents involving their persecution should be dealt with decisively) as you have mentioned.

Another is that our climate is ideally suited to many species of corvids, particualry rooks. These birds thrive in areas where the soil is soft enough to extract food from all year round and climates that are too dry and hot(such as parts of France in summer) and/or endure long freezing winters which restrict access to soil invertebrates severely curtail there numbers.

Since Ireland rarely experiences such climatic extremes for long periods these birds thrive here.:)

See Ye

Fair enough, thanks.

O'Coonassa

See Ye wrote: »

Anything ?

Morrígan :pac:

See Ye

Now why didn't I think of that