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The western jackdaw (Coloeus monedula) is a passerine bird in the crow family that is also known as the Eurasian jackdaw, the European jackdaw, or simply the jackdaw. It may be found in Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa; it is mostly a resident species. However, northern and eastern populations move south in the winter. There are four subspecies, which differ mostly in the coloration of the head and nape feathers. Linnaeus was the first to properly describe it, giving it the name Corvus monedula. The popular name comes from the words jack, which means “little,” and daw, which is a less frequent synonym for “jackdaw” and the bird’s original English name.

The western jackdaw is a black-plumaged bird with a grey nape and characteristic pale-grey irises that measures 34–39 cm (13–15 in) in length. It lives in small groups with a complex social structure in farms, open forests, coastal cliffs, and urban areas and is sociable and vocal. Jackdaws, like their siblings, are clever birds who have been observed utilizing tools. It consumes a wide variety of plant material and invertebrates, as well as food waste from metropolitan areas, being an omnivorous and opportunistic eater. Western jackdaws are monogamous and construct small stick nests in tree holes, cliffs, and buildings. The female lays and incubates around five pale blue or blue-green eggs with brown speckles. In four to five weeks, the young fledge.

The western jackdaw was one of several species first described by Carl Linnaeus in his work Systema Naturae in the 18th century. Linnaeus gave it the binomial name Corvus monedula, derived from moneta, the Latin stem of the word “money,” and the specific name mndla, which is derived from moneta, the Latin stem of the word “money.” Although most later studies have maintained the two jackdaw species in Corvus, jackdaws are occasionally classified in the genus Coloeus, from the Ancient Greek o (koloios) meaning jackdaw.

The original Old English word o (pronounced with an initial ch) gave rise to the modern English term “chough”; Chaucer and Shakespeare both used it to allude to the western jackdaw in Hamlet, though it is unclear which species he was talking to. The red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax), once prevalent in Cornwall, became known first as the “Cornish chough” and later simply as the “chough,” with the name passing from one species to the other.

The name jackdaw is considered to be a combination of the forename Jack, which is used in animal names to indicate a tiny form (e.g., jack snipe), and the old native English term daw, which first appeared in the 16th century. Western jackdaws were once just referred to as “daws.” The Oxford English Dictionary does not support the theory that the jack portion of the popular name comes from a metallic chyak call. The Oxford English Dictionary claims that the word daw comes from the postulated Old English dawe, noting cognates in Old High German tha, Middle High German the or tchele, and contemporary German Dahle or Dohle, as well as dialectal Tach, Dähi, Däche, and Dacha.

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