Ravens and Crows

Physical description is only one of the four components of telling whether this is a raven or a crow. Can you tell what it is by the description in the article?

 

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On our flight east last week, we left the range of the common raven about the Colorado/Kansas state line. The raven is an iconic species throughout much of the west, northern Canada, Alaska and the northern Great Lakes. There is also an isolated population centered around the Appalachian Mountains, but most folks dwelling in the eastern half of the country have probably never seen one.

That isn’t the case with its cousin, the American crow. This bird truly is American, distributed across the USA in every state. East coast and Gulf coast birders have the difficult task of learning to distinguish between the fish crow and the American crow, but they never have to wonder whether or not a large black bird is a raven.

Where ravens and crows co-exist, telling them apart can be a challenge. Side by side, the raven dwarfs the crow, but if they are not together, it gets trickier. As with many species, the trick is to look for four things: physical description, voice, habitat and behavior. Armed with this kind of information, distinguishing the two species isn’t much harder than a couple of laps in the kiddie pool.

Physical Differences—The raven is far larger, about the size of a redtail hawk; a crow is just larger than a magpie. A raven’s wings span about 46 inches while the crow’s wingspan is 36 inches. In flight, crows have rounded tails but ravens have tail feathers that are longer in the center, giving the tail a more pointed or diamond shape. When wings are outstretched, ravens have five “feather fingers” and crows have four. 

The real distinguishing characteristic though, is the bill. If a crow’s bill can be described as a large pointed chisel, a raven’s bill is a jackhammer.

Voice—Ravens and crows are both vocal birds and that really helps in identifying the two. Crows caw. It is a little high-pitched and nasal but distinct enough that you might think they are actually saying the word, “caw”. Ravens, on the other hand, give a lower, coarser croaking sound. I suppose other ravens find it attractive but it is a bit grating to many human ears. In addition, the crow has a rattle call that sounds like a stick against bicycle spokes. The raven’s alternate call is called a knock and sounds like someone tapping on a wooden door—tok, tok, tok. 

Habitat—Crows have adapted to humans and find city life much to their liking. They like trash, city parks and the party life. Ravens prefer less developed areas and open spaces.

Behavior—Crows like company and are often seen in groups. During winter, the groups can be huge. Ravens are a bit more antisocial, usually traveling alone or in pairs. Where crows have adapted well to civilization, ravens are far less trusting and will move off when humans approach.

Ravens also soar much like hawks and on windy days often perform acrobatics such as barrel rolls. Crows rarely soar for more than a few seconds and are not interested in showing off their flying skills.

With these tips, it should be pretty easy to determine whether or not the next large black bird you see is a raven or a crow. Then you can start working on distinguishing the common raven from the Chihuahuan raven and the American crow from the northwestern and fish crows.   

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Wildlife License Plates

Great news! as of 2024, there are three NEW designs for license plates. They still are bluebird, cutthroat trout and elk, but they are beautiful.

Idaho Wildlife license plates provide essential funding that benefits the great diversity of native plants and wildlife that are not hunted, fished or trapped—over 10,000 species or 98% of Idaho’s species diversity. Game species that share the same habitats (such as elk, deer, antelope, sage-grouse, salmon, trout) also benefit from these specialty plates.

No state tax dollars are provided for wildlife diversity, conservation education and recreation programs. Neither are any revenues from the sale of hunting or fishing licenses spent on nongame species. Instead, these species depend on direct donations, federal grants, fundraising initiatives—and the Idaho Wildlife license plates.

Both my vehicles have Bluebird Plates. I prefer the bluebird because the nongame program gets 70 percent of the money from bluebird plates, but only 60 percent of the money from elk and trout plates - 10 percent of the money from elk plates supports wildlife disease monitoring and testing programs (to benefit the livestock industry) and 10 percent from cutthroat plates supports non-motorized boat access.

Incidentally, in 2014, the Idaho Legislature denied the Department of Fish and Game the ability to add new plates or even to change the name of the elk and cutthroat plates (very specific) to wildlife and fish plates, a move that would have allowed for changing images occasionally and generating more revenue. It would seem that they believe that we Idahoans don't want a well funded wildlife program.

I think it is time we let the Legislature know that Idahoan support wildlife funding and that we would like to see these generic plates come to fruition.