The white-billed crow (''Corvus woodfordi'') is a member of the

crow family Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. In colloquial English, they are known as the crow family or corvids. Currently, ...

found on the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capita ...

Description

It is a short and stocky forest bird (40–41 cm in length) with a short, squared-off tail and a relatively large head with a very distinctive deep and curved pale ivory-coloured bill with a darker tip. The dark nasal bristles, though not thick, are quite apparent against the pale coloured bill. The bird overall is very glossy black with a greenish-purple gloss to the head and purple gloss to the rest of the body. The iris is pale grey or white in the adult bird and the legs and feet are black. The voice is described as being reminiscent of the

Torresian crow The Torresian crow (''Corvus orru''), also called the Australian crow or Papuan crow, is a passerine bird in the crow family native to the north and west of Australia and nearby islands in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The species has a black ...

but higher in pitch and faster, giving an ''"ao-ao-ao"'' sound. This species is confined to the central part of the

and can be found specifically on the islands of Choiseul, Isabel and

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the seco ...

where it forages in small family groups through the trees, feeding on various

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s and fruits. It is normally difficult to view as it often remains well hidden in the high forest canopy while feeding and even flying low, just over the tops of the trees when moving on. As is the case with many forest crows, there is little information on the species' breeding habits.

References

Corvus Birds described in 1887 Taxa named by William Robert Ogilvie-Grant {{Corvidae-stub