Hoodies

The hoodie, or hooded crow, is a common resident of the Ardnamurchan area. On a wider scale, he is found in western Scotland and Ireland - but not England - and across most of northern and eastern Europe. He was originally thought to be a subspecies of the carrion crow which is native to much of western Britain but is now classed as a separate species, Corvus cornix.

The hoodie is a survivor, an omnivorous scavenger who eats anything from carrion to insects to the eggs and young of other birds. He's an intelligent bird: for example, if he finds a crab, sea urchin or sea snail such as a whelk, he flies into the air with it and drops in onto a rock, repeating the process until the shell breaks. This activity has been closely studied by scientists - who obviously have little better to do - who discovered that crows lift the shell to an average height of 5m before dropping it, and tend to drop a shell more than once, persisting until it is broken, rather than selecting another shell. If you doubt this research, local hoodies can often be observed doing it on the rocks round Kilchoan Bay.

If the hoodie confined his depredations to wild animals he would probably be accepted but he's persecuted as a killer of lambs. When a lamb is first born and helpless the hoodie goes for its softest and most vulnerable parts, its eyes, pecking them out. If they're not killed, the lambs are left horribly mutilated.