Hey Paul, how do you normally tell the difference?

Crows hang around with other crows. :D

The call and size and location always help ;)

It's very hard to tell from the angle, but that tail looks raven like to me.

Ravens are larger than crows and they look like a hawk in some ways while flying.

Hey Paul, how do you normally tell the difference?


Not Paul, but I can help a little.That is a raven. The beak, tail, and body shape define it. The beak on a crow looks the way a little kid would draw a bird - two triangles. The raven has a "heavy Roman-like nose" (quote Peterson Guides, Western Birds) Also, note the thick neck (goiter-like, Peterson). The tail is wedge-shaped on a raven, which is very evident in your photo.


We have them here, they are really smart birds. When the fly overhead you can hear the 'chuff, chuff' of their flapping wings. We don't have crows at our place, never seen them here.

When in Tucson, (well I'm actually 25 miles north of Tucson), come bird here, if you like…

The beak on a crow looks the way a little kid would draw a bird - two triangles. The raven has a "heavy Roman-like nose" (quote Peterson Guides, Western Birds) Also, note the thick neck (goiter-like, Peterson). The tail is wedge-shaped on a raven, which is very evident in your photo.


Hey, great response! I'll have to remember that now. Crows have trangle-shaped beaks, and ravens have "Roman noses" :D I rather like that!

Are crows just not found in our area? I think of crows living around rural areas. Maybe ravens are dominant out west.

If you have any shots and id's of other birds in our area, I'd love to see 'em. I see lots of birds around that I can't id. Maybe we can start a southwest bird thread :)

Rick

According to one of my ornithologist friends, they're not in our area. The rare or occasional one might make it to the northern fringes of Phoenix.

AZ Birds: I have a LOT of pictures of our locals. I've only been posting ones with the new camera. ( One exception - I posted the dragonfly picture, hoping to take advantage of the knowledge of the board. Quite successfully, I should add).

I regularly email photos of local flora and fauna, with a brief explanation, out to a group of people. It is called my 'Critter List'. There are inclusions of biking and 'event' pictures, too. An example of an event would be the recent snow capping the mountains, past fires where I rode my bike out to where the tankers were dumping retardant and took pictures, hung out with the hotshotters, etc. There are, usually, several mailings per week.(More lately, with the new camera, but, no one has asked me to stop sending them so frequently.)

All of the postings on this board were sent out on the 'Critter List'. They are usually sized at around 1000 pixels in width and a little larger in file size than what is allowed on the boards.

If you (or anyone else) would like to be added to the list email me, cj at wowaz dot com

All my photos aren't of the quality you see from some of the others. They're all pretty much of the quality which you've seen.

I apologize, I missed a lot of your bird threads here! Let me go back and catch up!