COMMON RAVEN GALLERY
(Corvus corax)
eBird gives this description of the Common Raven: All black bird with wedge-shaped tail. Larger than a crow with thicker, longer bill. Bill longer than head. Tends to be solitary. Cruises along roads looking for carrion. Inhabits primarily rural areas in open country or forests. Uses variety of habitats including high desert, coast, sagebrush, tundra, and grasslands. To separate from crows, note wedge-shaped tail, more pointed wings, croaking voice, and longer bill. Also, smoother, steadier wingbeats, compared to choppy, faster wingbeats of smaller crows. All About Birds adds to the description of the Common Raven with this: The intriguing Common Raven has accompanied people around the Northern Hemisphere for centuries, following their wagons, sleds, sleighs, and hunting parties in hopes of a quick meal. Ravens are among the smartest of all birds, gaining a reputation for solving ever more complicated problems invented by ever more creative scientists. These big, sooty birds thrive among humans and in the back of beyond, stretching across the sky on easy, flowing wingbeats and filling the empty spaces with an echoing croak.
I saw my first Ravens in October of 2013 on a backpack into canyons on Cedar Mesa with Vaughn Hadenfeldt of Far Out Expeditions. Indeed, it appeared to me that Vaughn could talk to them, and they seemed watch over our walks each day in the canyons. I didn’t get any pictures however, since they were always high above us, in flight. On August 4, 2017, while in the parking lot at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, I saw two large black birds that turned out to be Common Ravens. They seemed almost tame, and I was able to get pictures without a problem. If I had to do it over again, I would have tried to photograph them in a more natural environment. This fall I will take one last walk with Vaughn into Grand Gulch, and I will do my best to get some photos of Vaughns posse!
“Cool Facts” About the Common Raven From All About Birds…
- The Common Raven is an acrobatic flier, often doing rolls and somersaults in the air. One bird was seen flying upside down for more than a half-mile. Young birds are fond of playing games with sticks, repeatedly dropping them, then diving to catch them in midair.
- Breeding pairs of Common Ravens hold territories and try to exclude all other ravens throughout the year. In winter, young ravens finding a carcass will call other ravens to the prize. They apparently do this to overwhelm the local territory owners by force of numbers to gain access to the food.
- Common Ravens are smart, which makes them dangerous predators. They sometimes work in pairs to raid seabird colonies, with one bird distracting an incubating adult and the other waiting to grab an egg or chick as soon as it’s uncovered. They’ve been seen waiting in trees as ewes give birth, then attacking the newborn lambs.
- They also use their intellect to put together cause and effect. A study in Wyoming discovered that during hunting season, the sound of a gunshot draws ravens in to investigate a presumed carcass, whereas the birds ignore sounds that are just as loud but harmless, such as an airhorn or a car door slamming.
- People the world over sense a certain kind of personality in ravens. Edgar Allan Poe clearly found them a little creepy. The captive ravens at the Tower of London are beloved and perhaps a little feared: legend has it that if they ever leave the tower, the British Empire will crumble. Native people of the Pacific Northwest regard the raven as an incurable trickster, bringing fire to people by stealing it from the sun, and stealing salmon only to drop them in rivers all over the world.
- Increasing raven populations threaten some vulnerable species including desert tortoises, Marbled Murrelets, and Least Terns. Ravens can cause trouble for people too. They’ve been implicated in causing power outages by contaminating insulators on power lines, fouling satellite dishes at the Goldstone Deep Space Site, peeling radar absorbent material off buildings at the China Lake Naval Weapons center, pecking holes in airplane wings, stealing golf balls, opening campers’ tents, and raiding cars left open at parks.
- Common Ravens can mimic the calls of other bird species. When raised in captivity, they can even imitate human words; one Common Raven raised from birth was taught to mimic the word “nevermore.”
- The oldest known wild Common Raven was at least 22 years, 7 months old. It was banded and found in Nova Scotia.