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When is a Crow a Crow, and a Carrion Crow a Crow (1 Viewer)

Peewit

Once a bird lover ... always a bird lover
Hi there

An odd title but more of a discussion about working out the best way of discussing bird species as they are and not as we perceive them

This is what I mean:

OH and I are having a debate this morning about Crows

He said "I have seen a lovely Crow on the roof of our house".

I said "What species of Crow is it". He said it is a "Crow"

I said you mean a "Carrion Crow"?.

OH said all Crows eat Carrion and so forth ...LOL

Has anyone had a debate like this with their nearest and dearest LOL

Hate to think where the LBJ discussion goes LOL ;)

Regards
Kathy
x
 
Depends whether it's carrying anything at the time ... ;)

He could have said 'I have seen a lovely Corvid on the roof of our house'

or 'I have seen a lovely member of the Crow family on the roof of our house'

Mmmm ... I think he was ok with what he said first time around, although not everyone would say 'lovely', admittedly ...
 
A farmer was planting a field. A crow landed on a nearby fence and said - "C'awn"?

The farmer looked at the crow and replied - "Nope. Beans."
The crow said "Awww" and flew off.

;)
 
Hi there

An odd title but more of a discussion about working out the best way of discussing bird species as they are and not as we perceive them

This is what I mean:

OH and I are having a debate this morning about Crows

He said "I have seen a lovely Crow on the roof of our house".

I said "What species of Crow is it". He said it is a "Crow"

I said you mean a "Carrion Crow"?.

OH said all Crows eat Carrion and so forth ...LOL

Has anyone had a debate like this with their nearest and dearest LOL

Hate to think where the LBJ discussion goes LOL ;)

Regards
Kathy
x

Pedantry tends not to win many friends.

I think if someone says they saw 'a crow' most of us are not going to think they mean a Jay or a Magpie or anything other than a Carrion Crow (except possibly in those places where it might be a Hooded Crow - which is the same species anyway).

As nothing else in the UK is called an 'anything' crow, it isn't really necessary to specify, is it?
 
Context is everything.

I'm on mr OH's side here. He told you he saw a crow on the roof - did you really think he meant anything other than a carrion crow or were you just being picky?

On the other hand, if he had just come back from a foreign trip and said he had seen a crow, it would have been a perfectly sensible qestion.

Mike
 
Bird discussions with my non-birding husband are often the other way around, funnily enough. If he asks me what I've seen, and I try to simplify my responses by calling something merely a "sparrow" for instance, he'll usually reply "what kind of sparrow? Don't they always have two names?" Even when it's meaningless to him, he wants me to tell him all about it :t:
 
You have been ' Hoodwinked' Peewit. (Nobody knows what that means...) Just like nobody knows why Hoodies stand outside off licences, or why they are now counted as different species to normal 'carrion' teenagers. ;)
 
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