A Conventicle of Corvids

This week’s Nature Photo Challenge from Denzil is to showcase corvids: the crows, ravens, jackdaws, magpies and similar in our lives. I want to showcase as well the collective nouns they’ve all acquired. The ravens in the feature photo seem rather stand off-ish. They are probably extremely miffed at their collective noun: an unkindness of ravens.

I have just one crow for you: I didn’t manage a photo of a murder of crows.

Crow on a roof.

Two jackdaws though. Is that enough to describe them as a clattering of jackdaws?

Then we’re off to Germany to spot a rather odd magpie: is it a magpie? He should be off to join his mates in a conventicle, a tittering, a gulp or a mischief of magpies.

And we’ll end where we started: with a raven, who looks far too dignified to be involved in any unkindness.

By the way. As a child, to help me to distinguish between crows and rooks, I was taught that a crow by itself is in fact a rook. And a crow surrounded by others is – a rook. I hope that’s clear.

Besides Denzil’s challenge, this is also for I. J. Khanewala’s Bird of the Week. Quite a few different birds here, but all are corvids, so I may get away with it … again.

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Author: margaret21

I'm retired and live in North Yorkshire, where I walk , write, volunteer and travel as often as I can.

68 thoughts on “A Conventicle of Corvids”

  2. Great selection of collective nouns although since seeing two magpies murder another several years ago on my across-the-road neighbour’s roof I’ve wondered if crows get a raw deal. I’m sure they do the same, though.

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  4. English collective nouns for animals are so funny. In German we have only a handful. Very boring. I like your photos of murders, etc. I particular like the one sitting on the snake chair – what is that about?

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  8. I can’t see a contact address on your site, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to correct you publicly unless this goes into moderation first – so feel free to delete or edit this.

    Your crow on a roof is actually a rook – but yes, it’s still a corvid.

    Your magpie is actually a hooded crow – very closely related to the common crow, but replaces them in northern and eastern Europe. We have them in Scotland and occasionally elsewhere in the UK.

    The saying is ‘a crow in a crowd is a rook, and a rook on its own is a crow.’ That only applies during the breeding season when rooks nest in large noisy colonies called rookeries, but crows and ravens nest singly keeping a good distance from their neighbours. At other times of year, you can get large aggregations of crows, and ravens too, especially as youngsters form big flocks in the autumn and winter.

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    1. I wouldn’t dream of rejecting your comment! It’s extremely helpful, and thank you for taking the time to spell things out fir me. Things are a lot more complicated than I realised. A rook on the roof eh? That indeed gives the lie to what I was taught (when my typo happy fingers typed raven rather than rook – now corrected, but still wrong, apparently!) I’ve got a lot to learn, and thank you for helping me by pointing me in the right direction(s)

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      3. Because of this post I have been looking at the birds on my neighbour’s roof today. And not only a jackdaw appeared, but also two rooks with white beaks! Who knew.

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  11. Great photos and I was impressed with the collective names. Annie H’s comment made me smile. Any way I found out the real difference.

    Did you know that a raven has 17 rigid feathers called pinions, while a crow only has 16?
    Apparently, the only difference between a raven and a crow is a matter of a pinion.
    😁😁

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  13. Annie is right about the hooded crow, the first one could be a rook or a carrion crow. I think you have to have very clear close up photos to see any difference. Whatever, they are great photos and I love the collective names.

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  14. I love collective nouns but some of these are new to me including conventicle and a gulp of magpies! As for your description of how to distinguish between a crow and a raven, no, it didn’t help a jot 😆 But the photos are great, especially your black and white jackdaws 🙂

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      3. Looking at the RSPB site on corvids, rooks have white beaks and tend to be sociable whereas carrion crows have black beaks and are rather solitary or in pairs. The ones around here are definitely not solitary! And I’m sure they all have black beaks. Jackdaws on the other hand are easily identified. 🖤

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      4. Ah, thanks. It’s so complicated *sigh*. If only they were like weasels and stoats. You can tell them apart, as I’m sure you know, because a weasel is weasily distinguished, whereas a stoat is stoatally different 😉

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    1. Ah yes. The literary connection would certainly leap to your mind! Your site is determinedly excluding me again. WP doesn’t like me talking to people called Rebecca. I have another blogging pal with the same name, and I’m cut off from her too. Grrr.

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      2. On a personal level, I’d be disappointed as you have provided stimulating challenges and done much towards building a community. However, I can only imagine how much time this must take you. One possibility is to continue to offer the challenges, but not to do the weekly round-up. Most challenges seem to work this way. It’s not such fun for the participants maybe, but many of us participate anyway in the ones that interest us. But you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do: your working life, and life-outside blogging must come first. Good luck in making your decision!

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  22. Pingback: Your photos of Corvids – Denzil Nature

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