Communal roosting in birds may function to enhance foraging e¤ciency, as explained by the information centre hypothesis, which predicts that successful foragers return from the roost to the rewarding food patch and that birds ignorant of this food follow knowledgeable roost-mates. We tested these predictions by exposing 34 radio-tagged, free-ranging, £ock-living hooded crows (Corvus corone cornix) to a novel experimental set-up mimicking a super£uous food patch with maximum temporal and spatial unpredictability. Each replicate lasted two days and was located on a new site. Data were collected during ten replicates over three years. First, a crow was more likely to visit the experimental food patch on the second day when it had been there on the ¢rst day. Second, when a crow had not been at this food patch on the ¢rst day, it was more likely to visit it on the second day if it had roosted together with a crow that had been there on the ¢rst day, but only if this knowledgeable roost-mate returned to the food patch on the second day. Our results support the information centre hypothesis and suggest that communal roosting might function to enhance foraging e¤ciency in hooded crows.