Photo: Carter Kremer/Audubon Photography Awardsħ.
#Crow wingspan series#
A man in Tulsa, Oklahoma hosted a series of “crow banquets” to prove how tasty the birds were, and apparently impressed the governor of Oklahoma so much that he established a “Statehouse Crow Meat Lovers Association.” Luckily for the crows, however, eating crow never really caught on-the fad faded by the early 1940s.Īmerican Crow. (Scarecrows and other figures meant to frighten crop-destroying birds go back centuries.) In the 1930s, there was even a brief attempt to eat away at their numbers by popularizing them as a dinner item. Crows’ penchant for crop thieving in particular has made them some enemies over the years. American Crows have been seen digging pits to forage for clams, distracting river otters to steal fish, dropping nuts on hard surfaces to open them, and stealing pet food from outdoor dog dishes.Ħ. Crows might be associated with carrion, but the crafty corvids are opportunistic eaters who use their intelligence to eat just about anything-from crops to other birds’ eggs-they can get their beaks on. Examples of tool use in American Crows include a captive individual dipping a cup in some water to moisten a container of dry food and a wild crow ripping off a splinter of wood from a fence to try to spear some prey in a hole.ĥ. The New Caledonian Crow is probably the most famous example of one sign of intelligence-tool use-but this behavior has been recorded in several other species of Corvus as well. Crows and ravens are some of the smartest animals in the world, with their intelligence considered on par with chimpanzees. Photo: Alejandra Lewandowski/Audubon Photography AwardsĤ.
We typically refer to the big ones as “ravens” and the smaller ones as “crows,” but there’s no real genetic basis for the two categories.įish Crow. There are more than 40 different species in the genus, spread out across every continent except South America and Antarctica, as well as several Pacific islands. If you still have a hard time telling these species apart, don’t beat yourself up too much-crows and ravens are all members of the same genus, Corvus. The Fish Crow is slightly smaller, but the surest way to distinguish it from an American Crow is to listen for its distinctive nasal call. Fish Crows typically stick near water and are most common near the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, but they also can extend far inland along river valleys. Common Ravens are heftier, with a bigger beak, shaggier throat feathers, and a wedge-shaped tail. Luckily, there are some tricks for telling them apart. American Crows are easy to confuse with Fish Crows, as well as their other close relative, the Common Raven. Another species, the Tamaulipas Crow, is an infrequent winter visitor to the southern tip of Texas.Ģ. Until recently, there was a third species called the Northwestern Crow, but it was absorbed into the American Crow in 2020. Wondering what that big black bird is overhead? The American Crow is one of just two species of crow commonly seen in the mainland United States, the other being the Fish Crow. So throw out any proconceived notions you might have about crows, and get to know one of America's cleverest birds a little better below.ġ. While crows in folklore and fiction are often associated with trickery and death (a group of crows is, after all, called a “murder”), recent research has shed new light on just how intelligent and family-oriented these birds can be. American Crows are a familiar sight across the country, common everywhere except our hottest and driest deserts.
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