Minister Valley, Allegheny National Forest, Warren
County, Pennsylvania, picture by the Author
Krrroooaaackkk!
It was a bright spring morning in Minister Valley, which is in Warren
County, Pennsylvania, and is part of the Allegheny National Forest. I was sitting at the mouth of a rock shelter,
by a fire, boiling water for breakfast, when I heard Krrrroooaaackkk!
I said to myself, out loud, “that sounds like a
raven!” a bird whose call I know well from my travels in Algonquin Park,
Canada. But, I knew that it couldn’t be
a raven, because ravens were extinct in western Pennsylvania. However, I knew what I’d heard.
So when I got back to Internet-land, I did some
research, and here is what I found.
Unlike crows, whose range expanded due to human
settlement and logging, ravens retreated as the forests shrank and the farms
and cities grew, retreating until, in Pennsylvania, they only hung on in the
wildest ridges of Allegheny and Appalachian Mountains. Because of logging and settlement, ravens had
almost vanished from Pennsylvania by the early 1900s and ornithologists thought
that ravens would be extinct there by 1940.
However, ravens are adaptable and opportunistic birds,
who have a greater worldwide range than any other bird, and somehow they
managed to survive in the wildest parts of Pennsylvania’s central mountains.
Fast forward to today and the forests have regrown
over large areas that were once farmland and the ravens have been leaving their
mountain hideouts to return to places where they haven’t been seen for decades,
such as Warren County, Pennsylvania.
Even though ravens have been slowly expanding their range, mountainous,
wilderness areas are still where you will most likely meet ravens. Today, in Pennsylvania, ravens are found mostly in the remote
parts of the north-central counties of the Allegheny Plateau and south-central counties, of the Appalachian Mountains.
Distribution of the Common Raven in North and Central America, Fig. 1, by Boarman, W. I. and Heinrich, B., “Common Raven |
Usually your first clue that a raven has come calling
is its call. Crows cannot “croak” they make a high-pitched “caw”, so if you hear a deep croaking
call it is probably a raven. Raven calls
can be heard [HERE]
So, if you do hear a deep, croaking call, look up but how
do you know if that black bird that you just heard is a raven or a crow?
At an average of 20 to 25 inches in length, ravens are
about 25% larger than crows, weighing on average 32 ounces and have a wingspan
of four feet: crows have an average weight of 16 ounces. In fact, crows are about the same size as a
large hawk. However, it is difficult to
tell bird species apart by relative size, unless you can see both birds at the
same time.
The two most distinctive features that will help you
distinguish between ravens and crows are; one, ravens have a thicker and
heavier beak than crows, whose beaks by comparison are slim. Also, the feathers on a raven’s throat are
shaggy.
Two, in flight, a raven’s tail has a distinct wedge
shape and a crow’s tail is fan shaped. When
flying a raven has both a pointy-head and a pointy-tail. Also, when flying, ravens keep their wings
horizontal, while the wings of crows form a shallow vee. In addition, ravens when flying, tend to soar
long distances without flapping their wings, while crows rarely soar and must
constantly flap their wings.
Adapted from “All About Birds: Similar Species: Crows and Ravens” |
Lastly, ravens are usually found alone or at most in
pairs, while the more gregarious crows are usually in groups of three or more,
sometimes many more.
So, if you happen to be in the
Pennsylvania wilderness and you hear a deep Krrroooaaackkk, look up perhaps a
raven came calling…
Sources:
“All About Birds: Similar Species: Crows and Ravens”, Kevin
McGowan, August 3, 2012, [Cornell
Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY], https://www.allaboutbirds.org/similar-species-crows-and-ravens/,
Accessed 3/21/19
“All About Birds: Common Raven” [Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY], https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Common_Raven/sounds, Accessed 3/12/19
BirdNote, “Ravens and Crows - Who Is Who”, https://www.birdnote.org/show/ravens-and-crows-who-who,
Accessed 3/20/19
BirdNote, “How to Tell a Raven From a Crow”, https://www.audubon.org/news/how-tell-raven-crow,
Accessed 3/20/19
Boarman, W. I. and
Heinrich, B., “Common Raven (Corvus corax), version 2.0.” In The
Birds of North America, (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). [Cornell Lab
of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, 1999], https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.476,
Accessed 3/12/19
Fergus, Charles, Wildlife of Pennsylvania,
[Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA, 2000], https://books.google.com/books?id=hmeG4EBxVJYC&pg=PT328&lpg=PT328&dq=ravens+in+pennsylvania&source=bl&ots=8l4vOwxbf7&sig=ACfU3U17EuwJ_3H3bQBHXBDbYEg90fGDUg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiJj_3C8PrgAhVjrlkKHZ7CA6Q4FBDoATAIegQIARAB#v=onepage&q=ravens%20in%20pennsylvania&f=false,
Accessed 3/12/19
Moyer, Ben, “Ravens, Often Mistaken For Crows, Have
Rebounded Following Decades Of Decline”, Special to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Feb 19, 2012 https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/hunting-fishing/2012/02/19/Ravens-often-mistaken-for-crows-have-rebounded-following-decades-of-decline/stories/201202190516, Accessed 3/12/19
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