Jackdaw. (Corvus monedula)
Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.
They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of wales. From the 1930s, the Austrian ornithologist Konrad Lorenz, founder of modern ethology, determined a strict social hierarchy within jackdaw groups (collectively called trains or clatterings). Unpaired females rank lowest in the hierarchy: they’re the last to have access to food and shelter in times of scarcity, and are liable to be pecked at by others without being permitted to retaliate.
However, when a female is selected as a mate, she assumes the same rank as her partner and is accepted as such by all others in the group, upon whom she may impose her status by pecking. Our jackdaw was classified in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus for its habit of picking up bright objects, particularly coins (monedula being from the same Latin stem, moneta, as money).
Indeed, after Adolf Hitler embarked on an art-theft campaign in the 1930s he was derided as ‘the Jackdaw of Linz’, reflecting an appetite for bright objects. A legend among early Christians declared that corvids were indeed white and took black plumage in mourning after the Crucifixion – except magpies, which were too busy pilfering to grieve properly, so turned only partially black.
Jackdaw. (Corvus monedula)
Jackdaws are pleasing to watch. Solemnly and methodically, they stalk the lawn, unhurried in their search patterns, neat and tidy and dignified in their bearing. Unlike the larger and clamorous cousins with which they often flock, their phrases are clipped, their conversations brief.
They pair for life, share food and, when the male barks his arrival at the nest, the female responds with a softer, longer reply. They like manmade structures. Formerly a nuisance as they favoured chimneys for their twiggy bundles, they’re less troublesome in the era of central heating and their liking for church steeples has long been indulged. As the 18th-century poet William Cowper put it, ‘A great frequenter of the church, Where bishop-like, he finds a perch And dormitory too.’ For this habit, the bird was deemed sacred in parts of wales. From the 1930s, the Austrian ornithologist Konrad Lorenz, founder of modern ethology, determined a strict social hierarchy within jackdaw groups (collectively called trains or clatterings). Unpaired females rank lowest in the hierarchy: they’re the last to have access to food and shelter in times of scarcity, and are liable to be pecked at by others without being permitted to retaliate.
However, when a female is selected as a mate, she assumes the same rank as her partner and is accepted as such by all others in the group, upon whom she may impose her status by pecking. Our jackdaw was classified in the 18th century by Carl Linnaeus for its habit of picking up bright objects, particularly coins (monedula being from the same Latin stem, moneta, as money).
Indeed, after Adolf Hitler embarked on an art-theft campaign in the 1930s he was derided as ‘the Jackdaw of Linz’, reflecting an appetite for bright objects. A legend among early Christians declared that corvids were indeed white and took black plumage in mourning after the Crucifixion – except magpies, which were too busy pilfering to grieve properly, so turned only partially black.