What is the difference between ravens and crows?
Flagstaff, AZ–Today I saw a crow at my bird feeder for the first time. It’s not that a crow has never been there before. I just never recognized it as a crow; I always thought that it was a raven. That was until I attended Shannon Benjamin’s presentation Corvid Lore: Ravens and Crows in the American Southwest at the Riordan Mansion State Historic Park in Flagstaff, AZ. Raised in Minnesota, I surely know what a crow looks like. When I moved “Out West” I became acquainted with ravens. For some reason, somewhere during my own southern migration, I came to believe that crows live near the corn fields of the Midwest, and ravens were the black birds of the western skies. Back to my feeder. I knew that the big, glossy black birds with thick beaks bounding around my feeder were ravens. I just hadn’t been discerning enough to notice that some of those cackling black birds had smaller, pointed beaks. Some of my Flagstaff ravens were actually crows. So much for bird watching. At the lecture, Shan
