So I was driving back from a client who’s way over there, which took me through some of the rare open terrain (old farm fields that have been kept clear). And there, out in the middle of an absolutely pristine ten acres or so of flat, polished snowfall, was a crow. A raven, actually, huge sucker.
Trudging. There’s no other word for it. One big, heavy, slow step at a time, in a straight line, no flapping, no jumping, no hopping. Just step-step-step-step, across probably twenty feet or more as I watched, and who knows how much before and after that.
I have never seen a bird trudge before. A raven doing it is… bemusing.
Well, yeah, I can see that. But it brings up that dumb 2nd-grade joke: Why do birds fly south for the winter? Because it’s too far to walk.
Why on earth would a bird be walking across a vast expanse of snow? Across most of it, for that matter?
ETA: I was charmed to find, when I opened the front door after once of the recent deep and powdery falls, lines of little lacy bird footprints all over the drifts. They were just deep enough, and still sharp as a tack, and the light lit them up strongly… it was like my own private sidewalk painting. But few of them were longer than a dozen steps before an obvious flurry of takeoff.
Relative size ( ravens are substantially larger ), relatively more robust and slightly more hooked bill, ravens have a “shaggy throat”, crows have a more rounded head shape, raven feathers tend to be slightly glossier, ravens have a slightly wedged tail shape in level flight as opposed to a more rounded crow tail.
Of course the problem is you have to have some experience with both in order to contrast and compare. Once you have seen enough of both they’re pretty easy to identify. Otherwise the shaggy throat is probably the clearest difference that doesn’t require a direct comparison, but it is also one of the hardest things to see with the naked eye at a distance. The tail is one of the hardest field signs IMHO, since the shape will change in flight.
Ravens have larger beaks and a diamond-shaped tail instead of a rounded one. Also, the calls are different. But it’s easy to mistake one for the other.
Flying for birds is somewhat like running for us - it takes effort. I’ve got three parrots at home who sometimes walk rather than fly (when they aren’t begging to be carried). Maybe the bird was tired. Maybe he likes walking through snowdrifts, like a kid. Crows and Ravens have been known to play.
We shovel out the birdie area, but there was a dusting from the last inch or so and we had the same thing under the feeders. The birdies were tromping around trying to uncover old feed.
Yes, they’re very playful and amazingly intelligent.
To my ear, there’s no overlap at all between a crow’s and a raven’s vocalizations. And their flight styles are distinct: ravens are good soaring birds, while crows seem to feel that flapping is required at all times.
Seconded. Crows have way more narrow, dull, even irritating “vocabulary”, whereas just listening to ravens in the wild is a great way to pass the time.
The birdies were tromping around trying to uncover old feed.
