The western jackdaw ( Coloeus monedula), also known as the Eurasian jackdaw, the European jackdaw, or simply the jackdaw, is a passerine bird in the Corvidae. Found across Europe, Palearctic and western North Africa; it is mostly Bird migration, although northern and eastern populations Bird migration south in the winter. Four subspecies are recognised, which differ mainly in the colouration of the plumage on the head and nape. Carl Linnaeus first described it formally, giving it the name Corvus monedula. The common name derives from the word jack, denoting "small", and daw, a less common synonym for "jackdaw", and the native English name for the bird.
Measuring in length, the western jackdaw is a black-plumaged bird with a grey nape and distinctive pale-grey irises. It is gregarious and vocal, living in small groups with a complex social structure in farmland, open woodland, on coastal cliffs, and in urban settings. Like its relatives, jackdaws are intelligent birds, and have been observed using tools. An omnivore and opportunistic feeder, it eats a wide variety of plant material and , as well as food waste from urban areas. Western jackdaws are monogamous and build simple nests of sticks in cavities in trees, cliffs, or buildings. About five pale blue or blue-green eggs with brown speckles are laid and incubated by the female. The young fledge in four to five weeks.
The original Old English words ċēo and ċeahhe (pronounced with initial ch) gave modern English "chough"; Geoffrey Chaucer sometimes used this word to refer to the western jackdaw, as did Shakespeare in Hamlet although there has been debate about which species he was referring to. This onomatopoeia name, based on the western jackdaw's call, now refers to corvids of the genus Pyrrhocorax; the red-billed chough ( Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), formerly particularly common in Cornwall, became known initially as the "Cornish chough" and then just the "chough", the name transferring from one species to the other.
The common name jackdaw first appeared in the 16th century, and is thought to be a compound of the forename Jack, used in animal names to signify a small form (e.g. jack snipe), and the archaic native English word daw. Formerly, western jackdaws were simply called "daws".Goodwin, p. 78 The metallic chyak call may be the origin of the jack part of the common name, but this is not supported by the Oxford English Dictionary. Daw, first used for the bird in the 15th century, is held by the Oxford English Dictionary to be derived from the postulated Old English dawe, citing the in Old High German tāha, Middle High German tāhe or tāchele, and modern German Dahle or Dohle, and dialectal Tach, Dähi, Däche and Dacha.
Names in English dialects are numerous. Scottish and north English dialects have included ka or kae since the 14th century. The Midlands form of this word was co or coo. Caddow is potentially a compound of ka and dow, a variant of daw. Other dialectal or obsolete names include caddesse, cawdaw, caddy, chauk, college-bird, jackerdaw, jacko, ka-wattie, chimney-sweep bird (from their nesting propensities), and sea-crow (from the frequency with which they are found on coasts). It was also frequently known quasi-nominally as Jack.
An archaic collective noun for a group of jackdaws is a "clattering".First recorded in John Lydgate's Debate between the Horse, Goose and Sheep (c.1430) as "A clatering of chowhis", and then in Juliana Berners' Book of Saint Albans (c.1480), as "a Clateryng of choughes". Another name for a flock is a "train".
Immature birds have duller and less demarcated plumage. The head is a sooty black, sometimes with a faint greenish sheen and brown feather bases visible; the back and side of the neck are dark grey and the underparts greyish or sooty black. The tail has narrower feathers and a greenish sheen.
There is very little geographic variation in size. The main differences are the presence or absence of a partial whitish collar at the base of the nape and variations in the colour of the nape and the tone of the underparts. Central Asian populations have slightly larger wings, while western populations have slightly heavier bills. Body colour becomes darker in mountain regions and humid climates further north, and paler elsewhere. However, individual variation, particularly in juveniles and during the months before moulting, can often exceed geographic differences.
The western jackdaw is a skilled flyer that can manoeuvre tightly, tumble and glide. It has distinctive jerky wingbeats when flying, though these are not apparent during bird migration. Wind tunnel experiments show that the preferred gliding speed is between per second and that the wingspan decreases as the bird flies faster. On the ground, western jackdaws have an upright posture and strut briskly, their short legs giving them a rapid gait. They feed with their heads held down or horizontally.
Within its range, the western jackdaw is unmistakable; its short bill and grey nape are distinguishing features. From a distance, it can be confused with a rook ( Corvus frugilegus), or when in flight, with a Columbidae or chough.Cramp, p. 121. Flying western jackdaws are distinguishable from other corvids by their smaller size, faster and deeper wingbeats and proportionately narrower and less fingered wing tips. They also have shorter, thicker necks, much shorter bills and frequently fly in tighter flocks. They can be distinguished from choughs by their uniformly grey underwings and their black beaks and legs.
Most populations are resident, but the northern and eastern populations are more migratory, relocating to wintering areas between September and November and returning between February and early May.Cramp, p. 124. Their range expands northwards into Russia to Siberia during summer and retracts in winter. They are vagrants to the Faroe Islands, particularly in the winter and spring, and occasionally to Iceland. Elsewhere, western jackdaws congregate over winter in the Ural River in northwestern Kazakhstan, the northern Caspian, and the Tian Shan region of western China. They are winter visitors to the Quetta in western Pakistan, and are winter vagrants to Lebanon, where they were first recorded in 1962. In Syria, they are winter vagrants and rare residents with some confirmed breeding taking place. The subspecies soemmerringii occurs in south-central Siberia and extreme northwestern China and is accidental to Hokkaido, Japan. A small number of western jackdaws reached northeastern North America in the 1980s and have been found from Atlantic Canada to Pennsylvania. They have also occurred as vagrants in Gibraltar, Mauritania, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and one is reported to have been seen in Egypt.
Western jackdaws inhabit wooded , pastures, cultivated land, coastal cliffs, and towns. They thrive when forested areas are cleared and converted to fields and open areas. Habitats with a mix of large trees, buildings, and open ground are preferred; open fields are left to the rook, and more wooded areas to the Eurasian jay ( Garrulus glandarius). Along with other corvids such as the rook, common raven ( Corvus corax), and hooded crow ( C. cornix), some western jackdaws spend the winter in urban parks; populations measured in three urban parks in Warsaw show increases from October to December, possibly due to western jackdaws migrating there from areas further north. The same data from Warsaw, collected from 1977 to 2003, showed that the wintering western jackdaw population had increased four-fold. The cause of the increase is unknown, but a reduction in the number of rooks may have benefited the species locally, or rooks overwintering in Belarus may have caused western jackdaws to relocate to Warsaw.
Highly gregarious, western jackdaws are generally seen in flocks of varying sizes, though males and females pair-bond for life and pairs stay together within flocks. Flocks increase in size in autumn and birds congregate at dusk for communal roosting, with up to several thousand individuals gathering at one site. At Uppsala, Sweden, 40,000 birds have been recorded at a single winter roost with mated pairs often settling together for the night.Cramp, p. 129. Western jackdaws frequently congregate with hooded crows or rooks, the latter particularly when migrating or roosting. They have been recorded foraging with the common starling ( Sturnus vulgaris), Northern lapwing ( Vanellus vanellus), and common gull ( Larus canus) in northwestern England. Flocks are targets of coordinated hunting by pairs of ( Falco biarmicus), although larger groups are more able to elude the Predation. Western jackdaws sometimes mob and drive off larger birds such as European magpies, common ravens, or ( Neophron percnopterus); one gives an alarm call which alerts its conspecifics to gather and attack as a group.Cramp, p. 132. Occasionally, a sick or injured western jackdaw is mobbed until it is killed.
In his book King Solomon's Ring, Konrad Lorenz described and analysed the complex social interactions in a western jackdaw flock that lived around his house in Altenberg, Austria. He ringed them for identification and caged them in the winter to prevent their annual Bird migration. He found that the birds have a linear hierarchical group structure, with higher-ranked individuals dominating lower-ranked birds, and pair-bonded birds sharing the same rank. Young males establish their individual status before pairing with females. Upon pairing, the female assumes the same social position as her partner. Unmated females are the lowest members in the pecking order, and are the last to have access to food and shelter. Lorenz noted one case in which a male, absent during the dominance struggles and pair bondings, returned to the flock, became the dominant male, and chose one of two unpaired females for a mate. This female immediately assumed a dominant position in the social hierarchy and demonstrated this by pecking others. According to Lorenz, the most significant factor in social behaviour was the immediate and intuitive grasp of the new hierarchy by each of the western jackdaws in the flock.
Western jackdaws entreat their partners to preen them by showing their nape and ruffling their head feathers. Birds mainly preen each other's head and neck. Known as allopreening, this behaviour is almost always done between birds of a mated pair.
Western jackdaws usually breed in Bird colony with pairs collaborating to find a nest site, which they then defend from other pairs and predators during most of the year. They nest in cavities in trees or cliffs, in ruined or occupied buildings and in chimneys, the common feature being a sheltered site for the nest. The availability of suitable sites influences their presence in a locale. They may also use church steeples for nesting, a fact reported in verse by 18th century English poet William Cowper:
Nest platforms can attain a great size. A mated pair usually constructs a nest by improving a crevice by dropping sticks into it; it is then built on top of the platform formed. This behaviour has led to the blocking of chimneys and even resulted in nests crashing down into fireplaces, sometimes with birds still on them.
In his The Natural History of Selborne, Gilbert White notes that western jackdaws used to nest in crevices beneath the of Stonehenge, and describes an example of the bird using a rabbit burrow for nesting. The species has been recorded outcompeting the tawny owl ( Strix aluco) for nest sites in the Netherlands. They can take over old nest sites of the black woodpecker ( Dryocopus martius) and stock dove ( Columba oenas). Breeding colonies may also edge out those of the red-billed chough, but in turn be ousted by larger corvids such as the carrion crow, rook or magpie.
Nests are lined with hair, wool, dead grass and many other materials. The eggs are a lighter colour than those of other corvids,Goodwin, p. 47 being smooth, a glossy pale blue or blue-green with darker speckles ranging from dark brown to olive or grey-violet.Cramp, p. 135. Egg size and weight varies slightly between subspecies; those of subspecies monedula average and in weight, those of subspecies soemmerringii in size and in weight, and those of subspecies spermologus in size and in weight. Clutches usually contain 4 or 5 eggs, although a Slovakian study found clutch sizes ranging from 2 to 9 eggs. The eggs are incubated by the female for 17–18 days until hatching as naked altricial chicks, which are completely dependent on the adults for food. They fledge after 28–35 days, and the parents continue to feed them for another four weeks or so.
Western jackdaws hatch asynchronously and incubation begins before clutch completion, which often leads to the death of the last-hatched young. If the supply of food is low, parental investment in the brood is kept to a minimum as little energy is wasted on feeding a chick that is unlikely to survive. Replacement clutches are very rarely laid in the event of clutch failure.
The great spotted cuckoo ( Clamator glandarius) has been recorded as a brood parasite of the western jackdaw, depositing its eggs in their nests in Spain and Israel. Nest robbers include the common raven in Spain, tawny owl, and least weasel ( Mustela nivalis) in England, and brown rat ( Rattus norvegicus) in Finland.Cramp, p. 136. The European pine marten ( Martes martes) raids isolated nests in Sweden but is less successful when nests are part of a colony.
The western jackdaw tends to feed on small up to in length that are found above ground, including various species of Coleoptera (particularly cockchafers of the genus Melolontha,Cramp, p. 125. and Curculionidae and .), Diptera, and Lepidoptera species, as well as snails and spiders. Also eaten are small rodents, , the eggs and chicks of birds, and carrion such as roadkill. Vegetable items consumed include farm grains (barley, wheat and oats), weed seeds, elderberries, acorns, and various cultivated fruits. Examination of the of western jackdaws shot in Cyprus in spring and summer revealed a diet of cereals (predominantly wheat) and insects (notably and ). The diet averages 84% plant material except when breeding, when the main food source is insects. A study in southern Spain examining western jackdaw pellets found that they contained significant amounts of Silicon dioxide and calcareous grit to aid digestion of vegetable food and supply dietary calcium.
Opportunistic and highly adaptable, the western jackdaw varies its diet markedly depending on available food sources.Cramp, p. 127. They have been recorded taking eggs and nestlings from the nests of the skylark ( Alauda arvensis), Manx shearwater ( Puffinus puffinus), razorbill ( Alca torda), common guillemot ( Uria aalge), grey heron ( Ardea cinerea), rock dove ( Columba livia), and Eurasian collared dove ( Streptopelia decaocto). A field study of a large city dump on the outskirts of León in northwestern Spain showed that western jackdaws forage there in the early morning and at dusk, and engage in some degree of kleptoparasitism. The saker falcon ( Falco cherrug) has been reported stealing food from western jackdaws on powerlines in Vojvodina in Serbia.
Western jackdaws practice active food sharing – where the initiative for the transfer lies with the donor – with a number of individuals, regardless of sex or kinship. They also share more of a preferred food than a less preferred food. The active giving of food by most birds is found mainly in the context of parental care and courtship. Western jackdaws show much higher levels of active giving than has been documented for other species, including chimpanzees. The function of this behaviour is not fully understood, though it has been found to be detached from nutrition and compatible with hypotheses of mutualism, reciprocity and harassment avoidance. It has also been proposed that food sharing may be motivated by prestige enhancement.
An outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness in Spain which was causing mortalities in humans has been linked to western jackdaws. During a Autopsy on an affected bird, a Polyomaviridae was isolated from the spleen. The illness appeared to be a co-infection of this with Salmonella and the virus has been provisionally named the crow polyomavirus (CPyV). Segmented filamentous bacteria have been isolated from the small intestine of a western jackdaw, although their or role is unknown.
The western jackdaw is one of a very small number of birds that legally be used as decoys or trapped in cages the United Kingdom. The other pest species that can be controlled by trapping are the carrion crow, Eurasian jay, Eurasian magpie and rook. An authorised person does not need to prove that the birds were a nuisance before trapping them, but must comply with the provisions of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. As of 2003, the western jackdaw was listed as a potential species for targeted hunting in the European Union Birds Directive, and hunting has been encouraged by German hunting associations. Permission to shoot western jackdaws in spring and summer exists in Cyprus, despite them not preying on gamebirds as is commonly believed.
In some cultures, the presence of a jackdaw on a roof is said to predict a new arrival. Alternatively, if a jackdaw settles on the roof of a house or flies down a chimney, it is considered an omen of death. Encountering a jackdaw is also an ill omen. A jackdaw standing on the vanes of a cathedral tower is said to foretell rain. The 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury records the story of a woman who, upon hearing a jackdaw chattering "more loudly than usual," grew pale and became fearful of suffering a "dreadful calamity", and that "while yet speaking, the messenger of her misfortunes arrived". Czechs superstition formerly held that if jackdaws are seen quarreling, war will follow, and that jackdaws will not build nests at Sázava after being banished by Saint Procopius.
The jackdaw was considered sacred in Welsh folklore as it nested in church steeples – it was shunned by the Devil because of its choice of residence. Nineteenth century belief in the Fens held that seeing a jackdaw on the way to a wedding was a good omen for a bride.
The jackdaw is featured on the Ukraine town of Halych's ancient coat of arms, the town's name allegedly being derived from the East Slavic word for the bird. In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), Milan Kundera notes that Franz Kafka's father Hermann had a sign in front of his shop with a jackdaw painted next to his name, since "kavka" means jackdaw in Czech language.
In the video game , the main character's ship is named the Jackdaw.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
Description
Vocalisations
Distribution and habitat
Fossil record
Behaviour
Social displays
Breeding
Feeding
Parasites and diseases
Pest control
Cultural depictions and folklore
Works cited
External links
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