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CARRION CROW
Corvus corone
Carrion Crow © Mike Weston
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe (C. corone/cornix): no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK (C. corone/cornix): green
Long-term trend 
England: rapid increase
UK population size
790,000 territories in 1990 (1988–91 Atlas: APEP06); 987,500 pairs in 2000 (updated using CBC/BBS trend)
Status summary
Carrion Crows have increased steadily since the 1960s (Gregory & Marchant 1996) and only now are there any signs of the UK population size stabilising. This trend has been associated with increases in nesting success and with earlier laying (perhaps an effect of climate change: Crick et al. 1997) and probably reflects the species' adaptability to changing habitats and the exploitation of ephemeral food resources in intensive agriculture. Unlike that of Magpie, the increase was unaffected by the introduction of Larsen traps around 1990. Also unlike Magpie, Carrion Crows have shown no levelling off of the long-term increase in fledglings per breeding attempt. Bag returns show little change in the numbers of crows killed by gamekeepers since 1960, suggesting that control on shooting estates may be stabilising numbers there and that the increases are occurring on unkeepered farmland and in other habitats.
 
CBC/BBS UK graph

1967-2007: 119% (confidence interval 80% to 173%)

 
Population changes in detail
 

 Demographic trends
Fledglings per breeding attempt graph
Laying date graph
 
 
More on demographic trends
 
Additional information
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This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Leech, D.I., Joys, A.C., Noble, D.G., Barimore, C., Downie, I.S., Grantham, M.J., Risely, K. & Robinson, R.A. (2010). Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2009.
BTO Research Report No. 541. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends)

Pages maintained by Iain Downie, Mandy T Andrews and Laura Smith: Last updated 18.02.2010