Crowsandravensare both all - dim , smart , societal penis of the genusCorvusthat’ll feed anything fromdead animalsto garbage . In other words , comparing them is less orchard apple tree - to - Orange River and more Malus pumila - to - other - apple ; so it can be a short difficult to figure out if the hoot perched on your fence is a raven or a bragging .
But just as you could learn how to tell your Fuji apples from your honeycrisps , there are a few ways to mark between a bragging and one ofEdgar Allan Poe’s“grim , ungainly , ghastly , gaunt , and ominous [ birds ] of yore”—and none involve waiting around for the puppet tocroak“Nevermore . ”
One , however , does take some croaking . AsChase Mendenhall , assistant curator of fowl conservation at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History , explains in the video below , American Crow and common ravens have slightly dissimilar yell . Crow make a higher - pitched , lighter dissonance that sound like they ’re saying “ Caw ! ” A Corvus corax ’s call , meanwhile , is a gloomy , more guttural croaking . A handy mnemonic gadget to help you recollect this is thatcawandcrowboth set out with the letterc . If your mysterybirdis bring in a throaty noise that sound like it set out with anr , it ’s more probable a Corvus corax .
raven are also observably full-grown . According toEffie Yeaw Nature Center naturalist Kristen Angelini , their wingspan can reach 4 feet , while a crow ’s is closer to 2.5 foundation . But unless you ’re looking at a crow and a raven side by side , this might not be much help . So attempt to sneak a peep at its beak : a crow ’s nib is small and straight . A raven ’s , on the other handwriting , is larger and more curved , with much more detectable bristly feathers on top .
If your bird takes flight of steps before you could pussyfoot close enough to stare at its bill , check out its derriere . A crow ’s tail is shaped like a paw fan , while a raven ’s tail assembly feathers do n’t diffuse nearly as much — they look more like a diamond .
