BIRDS OF KYRGYZSTAN
ROOK (Corvus frugilegus)
Thanks to Pierre Deviche, Ph.D., Professor and Chair, ASU IACUC, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, Rob Gordijn, and Lynea Hinchman, Michigan City, Indiana, for confirming my ID of this Rook.
The Rook (Corvus frugilegus) is a member of the Passerine order of birds and the crow family. This species is similar in size or slightly smaller than the Carrion Crow at about 45 cm, with black feathers often showing a blue or bluish-purple sheen in bright sunlight. The feathers on the head, neck and shoulders (mantle) are particularly dense and silky. They are distinguished from similar members of the family by the bare grey-white skin around the base of the adult's bill in front of the eyes. The feathering around the legs is also "shaggier" and laxer than the conspecific Carrion Crow. The juvenile is superficially more similar to that Crow but loses these facial feathers after about six months. Legs and feet are black, the bill grey-black. Though resident in Great Britain and much of north and central Europe, vagrant to Iceland and northern Scandinavia, it also occours as an eastern race in Asia where it differs in being very slightly smaller on average and having a somewhat more fully feathered "face".
HOODED CROW (Corvus cornix)
Thanks to Ole Post, Branderup, Denmark, for IDing this Hooded Crow. Was: Corvus corone cornix. Now: Corvus cornix. This crow got its own species status only this year. That is to say it got promoted on basis of DNA from just being a subspecies of Carrion Crow. (Corvus corone corone)
GREAT TIT (Parus major)
Thanks to Rev. Forest Strnad, Faribault, MN, Colonel Tom Dougherty, Offutt AFB, NE, David Kelly, Tranent, Scotland, Liz Day, Indianapolis, Indiana, Urs Geiser, Woodridge (DuPage Co.), IL, USA, and Paul Rakow, Liverpool, for IDing this Great Tit (Parus major), one of the most widespread members of the Tit/Chickadee family in the Old World and a common feeder bird from Europe to the Far East. According to Paul Rakow, "They tend to be very self-confident around people, a common feeder-bird. They are even willing to come indoors through open windows--when I was in Germany there was a Great Tit that regularly came into the University Library to gather up human hair from the carpet for nest-building."
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