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Britain’s Roaming Pied Crow Was Not Accepted as a Wild Vagrant

Pied Crow in Karoo National Park, South Africa
Conservation · Management

A pied crow (Corvus albus) that travelled widely around Britain in 2018 and 2019 has not been accepted as a wild vagrant on the British List. The British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee (BOURC) announced its decision on 26 March 2026 after reviewing the bird’s movements, the species’ occurrence beyond Africa and the possibility that the crow had received assistance from a ship.

The bird was first found in Yorkshire on 13 June 2018 and was subsequently recorded in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Avon, Pembrokeshire and several other parts of Britain. It remained in Yorkshire for much of the following winter, became mobile again in spring 2019 and later crossed to the Netherlands, where it stayed from May 2019 until March 2020.

Five days before the first British sighting, a pied crow was observed at sea in the southeastern North Sea briefly visiting a ship travelling from Russia toward Britain. BOURC considers this likely to have been the same individual. The committee therefore evaluated whether the bird should be admitted to Category A, which covers naturally occurring wild birds, or Category D, which is used for records where natural occurrence is considered possible but there is reasonable doubt.

The committee also considered the wider distribution of pied crows beyond their main sub-Saharan range. The species has occurred north of its normal distribution in North Africa and has been recorded in several European countries. Breeding has occurred in Western Sahara, while breeding attempts have also been reported in Ceuta and Libya. BOURC nevertheless concluded that these records provide limited evidence for a progressive natural range expansion into temperate Europe.

Possible ship assistance was central to the decision

Ship assistance was central to the decision. BOURC policy does not normally admit birds that have been transported from port to port or coast to coast, and suspected ship-assisted individuals are accepted only when the species is considered capable of making the crossing without assistance under favourable conditions.

The bird was not accepted into Category A or D

BOURC voted unanimously not to add pied crow to Category A or Category D and did not consider the 2018–2019 bird to be a wild vagrant. The decision matches the treatment of the same individual by the Dutch rarity committee. Pied crow therefore remains in Category E in Britain, which includes species recorded as introductions, human-assisted transportees or escapees from captivity whose breeding populations, if any, are not considered self-sustaining.

Sources and image credit

  1. British Ornithologists’ Union Records Committee. (2026, March 26). Changes to the British List (26 Mar 2026). British Ornithologists’ Union.Primary official BOURC decision. The committee reviewed the 2018–2019 Pied Crow, its likely ship association, Western Palearctic records and ship-assisted-vagrant policy, and voted unanimously not to add the species to Category A or D. Pied Crow therefore remains in Category E in Britain.

Image: Bernard Dupont — wild Pied Crow in Karoo National Park, Western Cape, South Africa, photographed 16 February 2023; Wikimedia Commons / Flickr; representative species image, not the British 2018–2019 individual · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Source

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