Anything but Common: The Hidden Life of the American Crow

We have both ravens and crows where I live in Utah.  Ravens seem more likely to soar while crows have that typical "rowing" powered flight.  Also ravens more likely to be in the mountains.  They can occur at lower elevations too, but the crows mostly stick to the valleys and towns. Still get stumped sometimes at a distance if I can't get a good look at the tail shape.  The soaring of ravens is a good feature except in cold temperatures where they have to flap more (no thermals at 20 below zero).

I live in the Pacific Northwest and found it interesting that some consider our crows to be a different species than the American Crow.  We moved here from the Midwest and I have always thought that the crows here are bigger than the ones I grew up with in Iowa.  Is that an accurate observation or just me not remembering correctly?

When telling crows from grackles I find eye color is helpful.

Bird shape.

Sometimes I think I get it, by beak size, or amount of feathers at the neck...then it turns out I was wrong! I need to keep looking at the beaks of crows and ravens to help distinguish!

I got it pretty well.  If you can see the eyes, anything but dark brown/blackish is not a crow another blackbird.  Sometimes I'm sure I can miss label ravens & crows.

So far so good between the tail feathers and the beaks.

While my hearing is not great and clearly not good enough to differentiate between various songbirds, corvids are a group that allows me to use sound as a signal.   For crows and ravens, I often start scanning the skies when I hear their characteristic calls.  So, I know what/who to look for.  The same is true for magpies.  The jays often leave me wondering, as I look into trees and bushes to find to source of their very variable sounds.

I don’t see any ravens from my home in the North Carolina piedmont, so it is not usually an issue.  I typically know I’m in raven territory when I hear the deep, guttural call.  Crows are around everyday!

Crows and Ravens are always gonna be tough to tell apart, but I certainly have a lot more to go by to check while taking this course. The snap ID is an absolute blast ! I'll go back to those again and again. Of course, the ultimate learning is while we're outside watching these intelligent and interesting critters. I find crows and especially ravens to be absolutely remarkable and full of spirit. Nature has so much to offer, teach and bewilder us. And it just keeps giving!

I've had the same crow family come by for six years, anywhere from 2-7 of them. I'm attuned to hearing them caw to let me know they are waiting. I can't tell them apart, but the original mother crow is missing a wing feather. Several of the others have white wing feathers or a touch of white feathers on their side.

I can tell each one in a minute by their calls. We had more Fish Crows where I lived only 2 miles from here. We are surrounded by ponds, rivers and numerous bodies of water including the Long Island Sound, The Hudson River, The Saw Mill River, The Bronx River and the Hutchinson River. It is exciting to see and hear the American Crow when they do come by and a real thrill to see the RAVEN. The ones I have seen were in pairs and took over the top peak of the Middle School.

i am confident i can identify them. They are my favourite animal of all. I have known this one for 3 years. I call him wingy because he has some irregular wing feathers on the right side. They dont affect his ability to fly (or ability to gobble up  cashews.).

I usually distinguish crows from other “blackbirds” by looking at the color of their eyes. But it's hard for me to tell which one is a crow when they're moving fast :(

I feel more confident with crows vs. ravens, but it can still be a challenge.  I can tell a crow from another 'blackbird'.  What I find interesting is the crows' abilities to identify ME and my husband vs. other people.  We had a LOT of construction done on my house during 2021 from the mid summer to just before Thanksgiving.  My husband and I stepped one foot out of the house and the crows (and the blue jays) would "yell" at us for food.  They are very used to getting peanuts from us.  But, these birds never, ever yelled at any of the workers who were here.  It was incredible.  I wish I were as good at identifying "our" crows as they are at identifying us! In mid-April of 2020, a "new" crow apparently was visiting our yard.  I did not realize this was a "new" crow.  The blue jays freaked out when it was here.  The jays and "our" crows have always eaten in harmony.  After all, they have trained us so well, there is plenty of food.  But, the jays were dive bombing the "new" crow and freaking out every time it stopped by for peanuts.  I am unclear what happened.  "Our" crows now have a larger family, I believe they are up to 9.  Of course, I still cannot tell one from another (and I cannot do this with blue jays either, lol).

Wing patterns are particularly difficult for me to identify. I also still have trouble with crow tail vs. raven tail when the tails are spread open.

Would appreciate some ways to distinguish crows in flight from other birds. Thank you.

I am gaining more confidence with this class. Head shape, tail length and eye color are also helpful indentifiers. Seeing videos of different flight styles would be super helpful, but I understand those may be difficult to acquire.

Crows vs Ravens are my downfall.   ID from just images is more difficult than seeing them in nature. As for other black birds -- tails, eyes, and feather color are a giveaway for me.

I am confident as long as I am looking at images that do not move! :) I don't know if I would be able to make the distinction quite yet in nature. I am familiar with the very large size of ravens and of course the red wing of the red-wing black bird. But a few of the other black birds are tough. I use the eyes and the bills most frequently to help distinguish.

I feel pretty confident in identifying crows - they are all over my neighborhood and very chatty in the morning

We find the tails and eyes helpful to ID them.

I feel that I have a much better understanding between the two, but have much more to learn.

I think where I get stuck is still crow vs raven.  I often wonder if the birds I see around are crows are ravens and usually just think they are all crows.  However after listening to the difference in their calls, I realize that there are definitely ravens around.  Now I need to start paying more attention so I can distinguish them.