Yes, you described the Hooded Crow there. I didn't know they had them out there too.
Sounds like a great experience you had with the Eagle Owl. One of my brothers is a proper twitcher and travels all over the country to spot a new bird. He recently went for a full day experience with raptors that was bought for him as a present. His favourite is the Peregrine Falcon. So much so, he got a tattoo of one.
If you do get a hawk or owl I hope you post pictures. I assume you still need a licence to keep them? The brother of an ex of mine used to keep a Kestrel and a Tawny Owl. My favourite has always been the Barn Owl though. There was a Tawny calling out the other night when I put the bin out late on at my mum's. I've heard it a few times recently but not sighted it.
Cheers - I was really confused when I saw them at first. They either migrated there or came in with ships I would think.
They had rescue birds there, they had a black tailed kite that had been found in the desert with a broken wing, they nursed it back to health but it can't fly, two Eagle Owls, one was blind in one eye, a buzzard, and a small falcon I cant recall the name of. The saddest sight though was the Peregrine. They said it was basically blind, if you dropped a lure in front of it, it jumped on a diagonal and missed it by about two feet. It sat on a low perch, it was too scared to fly to the high perch they had set up. There was a huge vulture too. These were all in outside cages so you could see them. The birds they fly, such as the Owls, the Harris Hawk, the falcon, Kestrel and the Eagle they were training, all stay inside.
I'm not sure about a licence, but next year I'm going to do the course to learn to fly the birds and take care of them, then I'll look at getting a bird.