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Long-living crows

<strong>I live in south-east London, where carrion crows have an easy life. For the past five or six years I've seen what I believe to be the same individual, recognisable by pale bases to its flight feathers. It is often to be found feeding in the local park where I walk my dogs. How long can carrion crows live in the wild?</strong>

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A) All members of the crow family are long-living ? ravens particularly so. The record for the oldest wild carrion crow comes from Kent, where a bird ringed at Sandwich Bay in February 1991 was found freshly dead at Betteshanger in Kent in 2009. This was 17 years, 10 months and 14 days after it was ringed.

Our carrion crows are largely sedentary, seldom moving far from where they were hatched. This particular bird had only moved 9km south-west of where it had been ringed. Such a short movement is probably typical.