Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Hooded Crow ?



Spotted this crow when out running on the coast here in North Wales this afternoon. It looks like a Hoodie to me but I have only seen these is Scotland some years ago and was not aware they occured this far south ? The shots are terrible but we had a sea fret blowing in at the time and this is the nearest to the bird I could get before it flew away. OK to record this as a Hoodie ?

I have never seen anything resembling a hoodie on the coast here before and wonder if its perhaps a lost bird from Ireland which is only about 40 miles away as the crow flies ;-) I have left the shots at full size so they can be enlarged.

4 comments:

darrell j prest said...

looks good for hooded! did you notice any lilac tones to the grey?

very smart bird

Goldon Gordon said...

Hi Darrell
To be honest I had trouble seeing it at all it was foogy with the fret rolling in. Do they occur normmaly in N Wales ?

Phil Wood said...

There was a very long staying individual at South Stack RSPB, and a quick trawl of Birdguides shows roughly annual records in Gwynedd and Anglesey, but nothing further east. Despite doing quite a lot of trips in the late 90's / early 00's, I never found one. Whereabouts were you, assuming you could tell in the mist?

Goldon Gordon said...

Hi Phil
I was running down the coast at the time. The shots were taken on the golf course at Morfa Nefyn. A couple of N Wales birders tell me that probably this same bird has also been seen on Bardsey Island. Its probably a wanderer from Ireland.