SPARKY STENSAAS
Raven or crow? From a distance, it can be hard to tell. Soaring flight and slender wing “fingers” are clues that this is a raven (here over Hawk Ridge in Duluth).
Most would not call these birds lovely. For that, we have warblers.
Few would consider their caws and quorks melodious, either. The calls of the Common Raven and American Crow just seem raucous.
But these birds are also crazy smart, subtle in their calls, playful and strategic. It’s worth your time to take another look at them, from the trail, your car or in your backyard, since both call all of the Lake Superior neighborhood home.
Ravens and crows, both members of the Corvidae family that includes magpies and jays, can be tricky to tell apart, especially at a distance.
Ravens are much bigger (about the size of a red-tailed hawk) and are usually alone or in pairs (though you can occasionally find a larger “conspiracy” or an “unkindness” of ravens). The much smaller crows more frequently gather into a “murder,” as large groupings are nicknamed. Raven wing tips are more fingerlike and pointed than those of crows, their tails wedge-shaped and their longer neck feathers more glossy.
Both are omnivores, enjoying Cheetos and carrion, blueberries and wolf poop, insects and baby birds or whatever is in your poorly-secured garbage can.
One way to decide if that black bird is raven or crow is to hear its voice. If it’s more of a “quork” or “croak,” like a cawing crow with laryngitis, that’s a raven.
Whatever feud you and the corvids have over that garbage can, one thing is certain: These are not “bird brains.” Ravens and crows fly in the high animal IQ range, smart enough to use tools, play tricks and communicate. Relative to their body size, the brains of crows and ravens are as large as those of chimpanzees.
In Minnesota, you’ll find more ravens than crows in Cook County and along the North Shore, says Bob Janssen, who has taught birding at North House Folk School in Grand Marais for more than 15 years and authored the book Birds of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
“Crows are semi-migratory,” he says, “with only a few stragglers remaining (in winter).” Ravens, on the other hand, stay put.
Bob, who estimates that he’s driven 3 million miles around Minnesota analyzing the geographical distribution of many bird species, believes ravens are expanding territory westward and southward in the state with an occasional raven pair spotted even in the Twin Cities.
Both crows and ravens have a broad range of calls, more alto or bass than soprano. Researchers have identified more than 20 different crows sounds, not counting the baby-talk caw of a juvenile crow (which you might hear from one latched to a branch and squawking for food from any nearby adult). Ravens have at least 64 calls, and no one, not even world-class corvid experts Bernd Heinrich or John Marzluff, has figured out what all of these mean.
In his book Gifts of the Crow, John mentions a “chicken cluck” among the raven’s vocabulary that indicates a nesting raven is worried about nearby danger. I know that cluck; that sound once stopped me in my tracks on a trail as I wondered in disbelief at how a chicken could perch high up in a tree.
Bernd, meanwhile, in Ravens in Winter, describes a “haaa, haaa” – the bird signaling that food is nearby but can’t be reached – plus lists “yip, coo, grunt, ka-ka-ka, thunk” and many more vocalizations.
Researchers also have noted ravens using their beaks to point at objects, using different calls to denote different ravens (their names perhaps?) and even recruiting others to share in a large kill.
This last, termed “recruitment behavior,” is intriguing. The birds are calling – yelling really – to gather to dinner other ravens not in their own family group. Why this altruism? It’s usually adolescents putting out the all-call when they find a carcass within the territory of a strong, mated pair of adult ravens. Gathering others helps to persuade that dominant pair that there’s enough to share. (Adolescence, by the way, is the only life stage when ravens flock.)
Playing seems part of the corvid repertoire. Crows may collect golf balls or small shiny objects. Ravens, especially juveniles, drop and catch sticks while flying, swoop down children’s icy playground slides and windsurf using pieces of bark.
Chel Anderson, plant ecologist and botanist for Minnesota DNR’s biological survey, recalls seeing three raven siblings playfully “tossing a piece of litter back and forth.”
These birds also may use tools to gather or find food. Crows are known to choose a small stick or thorn to poke into holes for food, to share information through demonstration with others and to memorize a particular human or car connected to food or danger.
Ravens track wolf packs to steal bites of their kills. If the wolves seem to loll around, ravens have been seen taking a quick peck at their tails to get them up and hunting again.
In laboratory tests, ravens assemble sticks and string to drag out food that was otherwise inaccessible. They also will skip a treat when they know they’ll get a better one later. In other words, humans aren’t the only ones who use tools or logic.
They also know how to cooperate. Crows in areas where owls lurk roost in well-lit trees and, in fall and winter, they flock by the hundreds or even thousands to take over several trees for the night, banding together for protection.
Chel has witnessed cooperation in ravens wanting to eat from a carcass claimed by a bald eagle. Once she saw a raven tug an eagle’s tail. “Ravens are cagey,” she says. “One will distract the eagle while the other darts in for a bite.”
Oh, those clever corvids.
SPARKY STENSAAS
A Common Raven hanging out on Owl Avenue in Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog.
COURTESY THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (BIRDSNA.ORG), MAINTAINED BY THE CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY
Common Raven
(Corvus corax)
Ojibwe name: Gaagaawig
Average adult size: 22 to 27 inches, 1.5 to 3.5 pounds
Lifespan: Up to 21 years
Population: About 20 million globally
Nesting: They nest in cliffs, trees or human-made structures. They raise one brood each year with 3-7 eggs. Cornell University’s All About Birds website describes the hatchlings as “Naked except for sparse tufts of grayish down, eyes closed, clumsy, and looking like ‘grotesque gargoyles’ according to a 1945 description.”
SOURCE: BIRD FACTS FROM WWW.ALLABOUTBIRDS.COM,
OJIBWE NAME FROM A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF MINNESOTA OJIBWE
SPARKY STENSAAS
An American Crow dining on the rib cage of some animal kill in Carlton, Minnesota.
COURTESY THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA (BIRDSNA.ORG), MAINTAINED BY THE CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY
Common Raven
(Corvus corax)
Ojibwe name: Gaagaawig
Average adult size: 22 to 27 inches, 1.5 to 3.5 pounds
Lifespan: Up to 21 years
Population: About 20 million globally
Nesting: They nest in cliffs, trees or human-made structures. They raise one brood each year with 3-7 eggs. Cornell University’s All About Birds website describes the hatchlings as “Naked except for sparse tufts of grayish down, eyes closed, clumsy, and looking like ‘grotesque gargoyles’ according to a 1945 description.”
SOURCE: BIRD FACTS FROM WWW.ALLABOUTBIRDS.COM,
OJIBWE NAME FROM A CONCISE DICTIONARY OF MINNESOTA OJIBWE
Jeanne Hanson teaches North Shore Natural History in the University of Minnesota’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Minneapolis.