what are these birds?

[Le Chat]

For the last 2 years, the area around where I live has become infiltrated by a huge "swarm" of birds, which I cannot identify. They are medium/large in size, blackish (some of them, the males I presume have a kind of fluffed up feather look around the top of their heads, which is a kind of silvery black colour.) They live along side the magpies that are in the area but on saying that, I have noticed a decrease in the magpie numbers lately. Their call is a single sound emmitted once or twice in succession like "Jo Jo" - although that does not really describe the sound as it is not easy to translate to human noise! We live close to the sea and there are plenty of trees and bushes around the area. They are in a pack of about 50 but sometimes they team up with others and are 100 or so in number. I have listened to the call of the crow and rook on the internet but neither sounds identical to this bird. They are definitely not blackbirds. Can anyone identify the mystery bird for me?

[moomoojaj]

They sound like starlings to me, but I could be wrong as I am not a keen bird watcher.

[Le Chat]

My Mum suggested that but looking at pictures, the starlings seem alot browner in colour than these boys!

[nuttybird]

They could be Jackdaws, their heads are silver and they make a horrid noise.  I think they're the birds that were in the Hitchcock film "The Birds"! 

[brianfbridge]

agree with moomoojaj Sounds very like Starlings. Do they flock at dusk? do they roost in the trees? If they are stalings they are a facinating bird to watch at the end of the day. Sometimes there are so many of them that they appear like smoke in the wind from a distance!

[lindapinda]

I agree with Nuttybird,jackdaws have that fluffed up punky look about them.I've also seen them around the magpies where I live too.

[Cetti]

Have a listen to the sound of Jackdaws in this link, also a video:

http://tinyurl.com/b9yt2

It's possible that this is the bird as they are black with grey heads and are very sociable birds travelling round in  quite large flocks. See what you think.

[SteveD]

We have been caught out before by a question about bird identification (it turned out the questioner was in India!).

Where did you see these birds?

[littleoldme]

The fact that they are crow-like and have a silvery-black fluffy feathering to their heads does make them sound very like jackdaws.

Have a look here, Le Chat, to see if it's your mystery bird:

http://www.birdphotography.co.uk/Jackdaw.htm

[kev100]

I dont know whether this will work on this site, hopefully this is a pic of a jackdaw.

C:\Documents and Settings\kevin\My Documents\My Pictures

[kev100]

Pity about that it was a nice pic

[littleoldme]

kev100 - the reason you can't create a link to that picture is because it's only on your computer (and believe me, you don't want outsiders linking to your computer!) You need to upload it to the web before anyone can see it.

Have a look here if you're interested:

http://www.magix-photos.com/index.php?l=en_UK_magix

[Le Chat]

Yes! Success!! They are Jackdaws! Thanks to all especially the sound bite from cetti as I needed to hear that awful noise as confirmation!! They are such noisy birds - not so good at 5am, when it's hot and all the windows are open. Talk about dawn chorus - it's a dawn orchestra.....

[Le Chat]

Ps. SteveD. We live in Southport UK !!