Category Archives: Birding

November 12, 2022 · 7:40 am

How corvids mimic human speech

If you’ve spent much time watching corvids in person or online, chances are you’ve come across one doing a Fred Armisen-level impression of something else. Perhaps it was the Steller’s jay in your backyard tricking you into thinking there was a red-tailed hawk soaring overhead, or maybe you remember the trash talking American crow that invited itself to an Oregon elementary school and delighted children with some crass language. That corvids, like some parrots, starlings, bowerbirds, etc., can mimic is well understood, but have you ever wondered why? Why can a bird talk like a person but a chimpanzee, an animal who shares 98% of our DNA, cannot? The answer boils down to three things: vocal anatomy, the brain, and behavior.

In humans, as with virtually all other terrestrial vertebrates, sound is produced in the larynx aka the voice box. As air passes through the larynx it vibrates the vocal cords, producing sounds. Across different species this system is enhanced or reduced, resulting in the roar of a lion, the grunt of an alligator or that conversation you wish you could have avoided with your coworker. While birds also have a larynx, it doesn’t produce sound. Instead, birds (well, most birds) have a wholly unique structure called the syrinx which sits not at the top of the trachea as the larynx does, but at the bottom, right at the bronchial split. This unique forking anatomy allows some birds to lateralize their sounds, meaning making different sounds on the left or right side, sometimes even at the same time! The repertoire of parrots is further enhanced by their fleshy (for a bird) tongue, which can manipulate air flow and produce more human-like speech.1 It’s this level of vocal complexity and control that possess birds with the incredible vocal range we hear, whether they use it for mimicry or not. In fact, despite this potential, most songbirds do not mimic, and actually cannot learn new songs after their first year of life.

But while the syrinx explains why some birds can produce human speech sounds, it doesn’t explain why our closest primate relatives cannot, especially given the similarities of their voice box with our own. That’s where the brain comes in. While non-human primates have the correct hardware in their vocal tracts2, they’re missing the technology they need in their brains.3 Specially, in the cortical association areas in the neocortex (the part of the brain that’s responsible for our higher-order behaviors). They simply don’t have the neurological control required to mimic human speech (though they do mimic us in other ways). So why do birds?

Unlike in primates, vocal mimicry is a cornerstone of communication and signaling in certain birds. Whether they’re using it to advertise their quality as a potential mate, territory defense, or as a way to bond with partners or group mates, mimicry plays a key role in engaging with those around them. Though the specifics of that engagement may not always be clear. For example, despite persistent online assertions that Steller’s jays mimic hawks either to warn of their presence or to scare competitors, there’s zero evidence in support of either of these. In fact, a study from 2017 found that wild jays almost never do it when predators or competitors are around, and instead do it most often at the beginning of the breeding season in front of their mate.4 Which is probably for the best. After all, if corvids chose to really make a habitat of using mimicry to trick other animals we’d likely find ourselves at the top of their target list.

Literature cited
1. Beckers G, Nelson B, and Suthers R. 2004. Vocal-tract filtering by lingual articulation in a parrot. Current Biology 14: P1592-1597
2. W. Tecumseh Fitch, de Boar B. Mathus N, Ghazanfar A. 2017. Monkey vocal tracts are speech ready. Science Advances 2: DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.1600723
3. Dunn J and Smaers J. 2018. Neural Correlates of Vocal Repertoire in Primates. Frontiers: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2018.00
4. Tippin T. 2017. Propensity of predator mimicry in wild Steller’s jays. Humboldt State University, MS thesis

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Filed under Birding, Crow curiosities, Jay behavior, Ravens, Vocalizations

June 7, 2022 · 12:49 am

A letter to the broken hearted nest observer

Breeding season is often a hard time for the tender hearted among us. The joy of watching an animal construct a nest just to see their efforts cut short by predation is painful. Likewise, finding a dead chick is tough, and prompts many to ask how they could have prevented such loss and better protected them.

I appreciate the people that bring me these questions so much. That care so deeply they would put in the effort to seek out these answers from a scientist and spend their time doing what I suggest. These are good people.

But whether you’re asking how to protect birds from crows, or crows from other animals, my answer is always the same. As hard as it is to watch animals get eaten, it’s vital to remember that predation is what keeps wildlife wild. It’s what keeps ecosystems complex & beautiful.

When we get into the business of deciding that (native, natural) predators are bad, and attempt to take action against them, we are denying the very wildlife we want to thrive from facets of their identity that make them who they are. Prey communities are shaped by the predators that have historically hunted them, and vice versa. Whether it’s how cryptic the chick’s color pattern is, how many eggs the female lays, where they build their nests…not one corner goes untouched. It’s this very process that has made something so beautiful that we can’t stand to see it harmed. But for communities to function that death is essential.

Predation is the transfer of life and that life is a gift. It’s a gift that ensures the survival of another, and even if we don’t know that individual as well as the one we watched perish, it’s not for us to assert that it, or its offspring, deserves that gift any less.

On the other hand, finding a dead, otherwise unharmed, chick can feel less…purposeful. “Why was it out of the nest so early?” “I read to leave it alone and it died anyway…should I have stepped in?” “I feel so bad I couldn’t save it!”…These are common responses.

But while it’s true that baby birds do sometimes (rarely) accidentally get kicked out of the nest, it’s also true that it’s not always an accident.

Sometimes parents simply reject offspring for reasons that are not for us to know. And that is okay. Part of honoring their wildness is accepting that they know more than us about their own lives, and that if they choose to not to support a chick they have a reason. There are exceptions of course in cases of conservation concerns, but for most backyard circumstances it is okay to accept their choice without interfering. Even if it hurts.

So please, rather than shutting down those deep feeling you have for wildlife by intervening, lean into them. Teach your friends and neighbors and children to feel those deep feelings. Because it’s from that space that we can do best by wildlife, even if it’s the kind red in tooth and talon.

It’s from there that we can grow a culture of care and empathy that shows us that nature is a community and by thinking first of community and not of the individual, can we have the broadest reach. That planting native vegetation, and keeping cats indoors, and fighting to protect land and water, is the way to love wildlife. Not by choosing who deserves to eat and who does not.

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Filed under Birding, Breeding, crow conflicts, Death, Ecosystem, Wildlife

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October 20, 2021 · 9:54 pm

How smoke affects wildlife

It’s September 8th, 2020 when I step out my front door in Eastern Washington into a landscape that looks like the aftermath of a Martian dust storm. The video I am recording captures my bizarre, sepia-colored surroundings as I try to put words to the experience of having your world an entirely different color than it was the day before. Like any inconsequential casualty in a disaster movie, my usual sense of self-preservation has been abandoned in favor of standing in harm’s way, mouth agape with my phone outstretched to the sky. After a minute, I realize my error and head back inside where I, and millions of other people on the West Coast spent the next several weeks hiding from air that can kill you.

That year, wildfires would go on to burn a total of 10.2 million acres on the west coast, cause $19.8 billion dollars in damage and directly kill at least 37 people. Over the last 30 years, fire severity and duration have increased and it’s impossible not to notice. Decades of wrongheaded fire management coupled with increasingly hotter, drier summers have meant that the 2-3% of wildfire starts we fail to suppress burn under the very worst conditions, pumping the air full of the kind of fine particulates that are irritating at best and deadly at worst. Unsurprisingly, the public health community has been swift to respond, with hundreds of studies examining the outcomes of smoke inhalation on humans. But while I and many other people were able to escape indoors during the worst of it, crows were unanimously stuck in a sepia haze…breathing. One has to ask; how do they cope? How does any wild animal cope?

Among those wondering was Olivia Sanderfoot, an imminent PhD graduate from the University of Washington. While there, she spent the majority of her time asking different questions about how smoke impacts wildlife, especially birds. In pursing her own research, Dr. Sanderfoot made a striking realization: despite the fact that nearly every birder, biologist and person were all wondering about how animals deals with smoke, there were only a few research studies. So with the help of her graduate lab, including myself, she resolved to collect and synthesize what papers were available into a comprehensive review. Published just this week, I am eager to share what we found.

As of the time our article was accepted, there have been only 41 English language studies examining the impacts of smoke on wildlife. Of those, less than half (44%) examined in situ (free ranging) animals dealing with real smoke events. Most were controlled studies where animals were intentionally exposed to smoke to learn about its impacts on their health or behavior. We found that from insects to sugar gliders a variety of different animals had been studied, but only 7 papers focused on birds (and sadly none on crows). Birds are of particular interest not only because, crows, but also because birds have a more efficient respiratory system than any other vertebrate. While this usually offers many advantages, it also quite literally makes them the canary in the coal mine—their high sensitivity to air quality acting as an important bioindicator in addition to the obvious consequences to welfare and conservation.

Although we had hoped to find clear answers to exactly how wildfire smoke impacts animal health, we only found 10 papers that addressed health outcomes specifically, and only 4 that ultimately looked at survival. Still, there are many more papers examining this question either in domestic animals, or animals models that are used as proxies for humans. When taken together with those findings, it’s clear that smoke isn’t good for animals, resulting in anything from carbon monoxide poisoning, to respiratory tissue damage, higher blood acid levels, stunted growth, compromised immune systems, and even death. Beyond direct health effects, exposure to smoke can may also reduce reproductive success. For example, researchers monitored the red-knobbed hornbill, a sort of toucan-like bird native to Indonesia, suggested that smoke might have contributed to a decline in the bird’s nesting success.

Smoke can induce behavioral responses among animals as well. Animals may become confused, agitated, vocal, lethargic, or quiet. For example, Bornean orangutans rest more during and after smoke events, Bornean white-bearded gibbons sing less, and sugar gliders extend the duration of torpor. Meanwhile pinecone lizards flick their tongues more, Psammodromus lizards start running, and many species of bats rouse from their torpor. Some birds are harder to detect like bald eagles, bushtits, killdeer, osprey and marsh wrens, while cedar waxwings, western tanagers, red breasted nuthatches, and yellow warblers actually become easier to detect as particulate matter (smoke) increases.

When taken together, it’s clear that wild animals are sensitive to smoke, and that smoke can have dramatic impacts on their health and behavior. But perhaps the most important finding of our review is that the predictability of these consequences for any future wildfire event remains almost completely out of reach. Because the thing about smoke is that it’s not all created equal. Smoke can have vastly different consequences to health depending on what’s burning (just think of the carcinogenic difference between cannabis and cigarette smoke), not to mention the impact that concentration and duration of exposure can have. And unfortunately, most existing studies haven’t undertaken the kinds of robust studies of air quality that are needed for this kind of future predictive power. Still, knowing this, and having a framework of existing knowledge and methodology, means that future studies are poised to finally start building the foundation we need for sophisticated, predictive modeling.

Until then, we can expect that smoke events like the kind we experienced in 2020 will continue to haunt our changing planet, and while some humans can safely nest alongside their air purifiers, many more, and all our wildlife, are at the mercy of an airscape they cannot retreat from. For now, this is our reality but it need not get inhospitably worse. Just has humans are capable of bullheaded, catastrophic damage, we are also capable of a profound capacity to change, improve and heal. It’s time to take bold, industry/system level steps towards changing our climate future, if only we can find the will to do so.

Read the whole paper here: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac30f6/pdf

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Filed under Birding, Climate change, Conservation, Corvid health, New Research, Wildlife

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October 23, 2020 · 9:36 pm

Addressing anti-Indigenous behaviors in corvid fandom

There are few animals that generate the kind of enthusiasm and following that ravens, crows, magpies and other birds in the corvidae family do. Their presence in our lives is so significant, they appear in the creation stories and fables of nearly all peoples. Today, our love for these birds has given rise to what feels like an entire industry of books, jewelry, artwork, and of course literal fan clubs, some of which serve many tens of thousands of followers. This community is not only fun to be a part of, but is doing important things to improve the reputation of corvids among those individuals or communities who might consider them a nuisance.

There are a couple of common ways though that, in our attempt to uplift corvids, our fandom sometimes trivializes the traditional beliefs of Indigenous North Americans, primarily through cultural appropriation and erasure. If it’s a new or esoteric term to you, cultural appropriation is the act of copying or using the customs and traditions of a particular people or culture, by somebody from another and typically, more dominant people or society.1  Here are three small steps the non-Native community (of which I am a part) can take to more respectfully celebrate our love of corvids, and the people for whom they traditionally hold deep cultural meaning. 

#1 Don’t use the term  “totem” or “spirit animal,” choose an alternative

In every place and time that humans and corvids co-occur, people have made culturally important meanings, stories, and symbology about these special birds. As a united group of corvid fans, it may therefore be tempting to sample from these practices as a means of creating community. One common way I see this manifest is in the use of terms like spirit animal to describe someone’s connection to a particular corvid. Like animism (the belief that all material possesses agency and a spirit) the term itself appears to have been an invention of anthropologists, but its intent is to refer to Indigenous religious practices. Co-opting this practice as our own, no matter how well-intentioned, devalues cultural traditions that are not ours to claim. 

A quick Etsy search of the term demonstrates just how far we’ve allowed the abasement and monetization of this practice by non-Indigenous people (i.e wine is my spirit animal t-shirts.) Even in cases where our use of cultural appropriation doesn’t feel objectively derogatory (it might even feel honorific), its adoption by non-Indigenous people is the kind of cultural cherry picking that has long frustrated Indigenous communities. 

“Dear NonNatives: Nothing is your spirit animal. Not a person, place or thing. Nothing is your spirit animal. You do not get one. Spirit animals derive from Anishinaabe and other tribes deeply held religious beliefs. It is a sacred, beloved process that is incredibly secret.”

—Mari Kurisato

To ignore those frustrations and claim that our use of this religious practice is either benign or born out of respect, is to prioritize the needs and feelings of ourselves above those for whom literal and cultural genocide remain contemporary battles.  In other words, it’s an act of racism. Of course, Indigenous peoples are not a monolith, and you may find individuals that feel no harm from non-Natives using this term, or even grant you specific access to it (though beware of plastic shamans.) In these cases, I offer that it’s harmless to decline using it despite any special permissions, while adopting it risks hurting and alienating the broader communities for which this or similar terms are sacred. 

Fortunately, there are many alternative ways to express kinship with corvids that do not rely on cultural theft. Here are a few of my favorites: muse, soulmate, best friend, fursona, daemon, icon, desired doppelgänger, secret twin, and familiar. 

#2 Recognize the diversity of Indigenous nations 

Pretty regularly, I see infographics pass through my social media feeds depicting either a photo or some kind of Indigenous-esque looking art and a sound bite about a “Native American” story about crows or ravens. While the intent here is obviously to celebrate a shared love of corvids, the means of doing so makes  no effort to actually learn the story or, importantly, from whom that story originates. 

There are 574 federally recognized Indigenous nations in the United States. There are even more when you include non-federally recognized tribes (ex: the Duwamish on whose lands much of the Seattle area is built.) While there is certainly shared knowledge and traditions, it’s important to recognize that these are independent nations with their own creation stories and traditions. For example, the story of Raven stealing the sun to bring light to earth is a Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit legend.2

Attributing them as simply “Native American” stories erases their cultural heritage by treating all Indigenous peoples as a monolith with unified cultural traditions. This is especially pernicious when these stories are told in the past tense, as if the people from whom they originate are gone. Putting in the effort to research where specific stories come from, and how and where that community exists now, is an important step to recognizing and respecting different tribal identities.

For the same reason, another important practice is to research on whose land you currently enjoy the corvids you watch or photograph. 

As Larissa Fasthorse explains, “Always know whose land you’re standing on. Who are the original people of that land? You need to find that out. You need to know those people, and,  where are they? Are they still there? If not, why? Where have they gone? Start to learn, start to educate yourself. Whose land are you profiting from and how can you start to pay that back in your own way.”

Larissa Fasthorse, interview on Here and Now 10/12/20

So the next time you see an interesting legend about corvids, do some research to learn about the actual people behind that story. Beware of sharing memes that make no effort to do that work. That’s generally a sign that they were not written by someone of that cultural heritage and are more interested in gaining likes and shares than honoring other people. Know on whose ancestral land your corvid watching takes place, and seek out print or digital resources to learn about those people. 

While the line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation can be fine, a willingness to seek out knowledge beyond what caught your initial attention is the best way to ensure you’re not engaging in cultural cherry picking. There are several great resources to starting doing this including Whose Land, which is an Indigenous-led project. You can also find more local resources that may serve you better, including the websites of individual tribes.

#3 Buy books and artwork directly from Indigenous sellers

Be it from Navajo, Tlingit, or Haida origins, Indigenous depictions of corvids are unequivocally beautiful. It’s only natural that corvid lovers might wish to enjoy such artistry in jewelry, paintings, sculptures, or books. As long as it’s not in the pursuit of a costume or other forms of identity theft, purchasing and displaying Indigenous art is encouraged, especially when you can use it to draw more attention to the artist. Sadly though, the number of Indigenous creators are far out-numbered by non-Native people looking to profit off their culture. 

For example, the Alaska Department of Commerce and Development estimates that 75-80% of what is branded as Native art, was not actually made by Alaska Natives, resulting in the redirection of millions of dollars away from Alaska Native communities.3  So before swiping that credit card, make sure that the creator of that piece has the cultural heritage to claim ownership of it. As the Indigenous led Eighth Generation collective puts it, make sure it was created by “inspired Natives” and was not “Native-inspired.” Don’t be afraid to ask shop owners or gallery curators this question directly. That’s not only an easy way to find out, but it signals to that purveyor that sourcing directly from Indigenous creators is something their customers require. Buying directly from Indigenous artists is an even better option. 

Here are a few Indigenous creators and collectives and a slideshow of their products: 
Eighth Generation
I-Hos Gallery
B. Yellowtail
Warren Steven Scott
The Shortridge Collection
Seaalaska Heritage Library

As always when buying from artists, expect the price to reflect that the piece supports a livelihood and don’t attempt to barter. The goal shouldn’t be to simply obtain a beautiful object, but to celebrate and support the person who took great care to craft a sharable piece of their identity. 

Reconciling the ongoing pain caused by centuries of brutality, land theft, and cultural erasure will not be an easy process. It’s uncomfortable, for example, to realize that while your intent was simply to love on corvids, something you’ve done or said is being called out as anti-Indigenous. But it’s essential that we are willing to engage with that discomfort because it’s through that process that we learn and initiate positive change. Inviting Indigenous voices into your spaces is the most important way to start or continue that effort. Please look for the following individuals who are but a drop in the list of fantastic people you can find. And if you appreciated this article, please consider making a donation to one of the individuals or organizations listed below.

Twitter
Vincent Schilling (@vinceschilling)
Delores Schilling (@DelSchilling)
Jesse Wente (@jessewente)
Mari Kurisato (@wordglass)
Katherine Crocker (@cricketcrocker)
Chief Lady Bird (@chiefladybird)
Daniel Heath Justice (@justicedanielh)
Jay Odjick (@JayOdjick)
Kat Milligan-Myhre (@Napaaqtuk)
Alethea Arnaquq Baril‏ (@Alethea_Aggiuq)
Ruth Hopkins (@Ruth_HHopkins)
Nick Estes (@nickestes)
Kim Tallbear (@KimTallbear)
Kyle White (@kylepowyswhyte)
Ō’m”kaistaaw”kaa•kii (@mariahgladstone)
Indigenous folks in STEM
Plus everyone on this list

Instagram
Indigenous Rising (@indigenousrising)
Corinne Rice (@misscorinne86)
Ryan Young (@Indigenousvengeance)
Indigenous Women Who Hike (@Indigenouswomenhike)
Calina Lawrence (@calinalawrence)
Adrienne Keen (@nativeapprops)
Winona LaDuke (@winonaladuke)
Indian Country Today (@indiancountrytoday)
Tanaya Winder (@Tanayawinder)
Sarain Fox (@sarainfox)
Decolonize Myself (@decolonizemyself)

Organizations/Resources
Reclaim Indigenous Arts
Native Women in the Arts
Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women
Native American Heritage Association
Kituwah Preservation and Education Program
American Indian College Fund
Indigenous Environmental Network
Two-Spirit Resource Directory
Cultural Survival

Many thanks to Liz Landefeld, David Craig, and Vince Schilling for leaving their fingerprints on this article.

Literature cited
1 Cultural Appropriation (2020). In Oxford Online Dictionary https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/cultural-appropriation?q=cultural+appropriation

2 Williams, Maria. How Raven Stole the Sun (Tales of the People). Abbeville Press, 11/20/2000

3 Howell-Zimmer J. 12/2000. Intellectual Property Protection For Alaska Native Arts. Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine. https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/intellectual-property-protection-alaska-native-arts

37 Comments

Filed under Anti-racism, Birding, Corvid mythology, Crows and humans, Wildlife

April 16, 2020 · 6:45 pm

The definitive guide for distinguishing American crows & common ravens

For two birds that are surprisingly far apart on the family tree, American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and common ravens (Corvus corax) can be awfully hard to distinguish, especially if you rarely see both together.  But with the right tools and a little practice you can most certainly develop the skill.  Fortunately, there are many different types of clues you can use to tell one from the other, so feel free to use the links to skip around to what interests you.

Physical Differences

Although crows and ravens are superficially quite similar, there are variety of features that can be used to tell one from the other. Overall size can be a good place to start.  This especially helpful if you live in an area where they overlap, but even if you don’t, I find that people who are used to seeing crows take notice when they see a raven in person because it feels ~aggressively~ large.  That’s because ravens, by mass, are about twice the size of an American crow.

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A common raven specimen (top) with an American crow specimen (bottom). On average, ravens are about twice as big as crows, but individually there are certainly large crows and diminutive ravens.

This size difference becomes most obvious is when you look at their face.  Raven’s are much more adapted for consuming carrion than crows are (crows cannot break through the skin of a squirrel) and their bills give the distinct impression that they could, in fact, pluck your eyes from your face with little effort. So if your sense of things is that you’re looking at a bill with a bird attached, then you’re probably looking at a raven, not a crow.

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With practice, judging the proportion of crows’ and ravens’ features, like bill size, becomes easier.

Crow vs. raven measuremntsWith practice, judging relative size becomes easier and more reliable, but for a beginner it may not be useful because it’s so subjective.  Instead, it’s easier to look at the field marks (birder speak for distinctive features) which provide more objective clues.

When looking at perched birds, the most helpful attribute is to look at the throat.  Ravens have elongated throat feathers called hackles, which they can articulate for a variety of behavioral displays.  Crows meanwhile have smooth, almost hair like throat feathers typical of other songbirds.

Crow v raven

Even when the feathers are relaxed, the textural differences between the two species throat feathers are apparent. Note that in this photo, the crown feathers of the crow are erect, while the raven’s is not.  The difference in crown shape should not therefor be judged in this comparison.

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When vocalizing or displaying the raven’s hackles become especially obvious.

In addition to the hackles, ravens can also articulate some of their other facial feathers in way crows cannot.  During threat displays for example, ravens will fluff out both the throat hackles and their “ear” tufts.

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For birds in flight, however, it’s often difficult—if not impossible—to clearly see the throat feathers.  Fortunately, the tail offers a reliable field mark in this case.  Whereas crows have a more squared or rounded tail (depending on how much they’ve fanned the feathers) a raven’s tail will have a distinct wedge shape. Additionally, although they are a bit more subtle, there are also some differences in the primary wing feathers.  While both birds have 10 primary feathers, in flight, ravens will look like they have four main “finger” feathers while crows will appear to have five. Ravens also have more slender, pointed primaries relative to crows.

crow vs raven

Vocal differences

With a little practice American crows and common ravens can easily be distinguished by their calls.  The call of a raven can be best described as a deep, hollow croak.  Crows on the other hand, caw.  Of course, they can both make at dozens of other sounds including rattles, knocks, coos, clicks, and imitations. With practice even these can be recognized by species, but that level of detail is not necessary for most identification purposes.

Juvenile common raven yell (Recording by Antonio Xeira-Chippewa County, Michigan)
Common raven water sound (Recording by Niels Krabbe-Galley Bay, British Columbia)
American crow call (Recording by David Vander Pluym-King County, Wasington)
American crow juvenile begging call (Recording by Jonathon Jongsma Minneapolis, Minnesota)
American crow rattle (Recording by Thomas Magarian-Portland, Oregon)
American crow wow call (Recording by Loma Pendergraft King County, Washington)
American crow scolding (Recording by Kaeli Swift-King County Washington)

Geographic/habitat differences

While both American crows and common ravens have wide distributions across North America, there are some key differences in where you are likely to find them.  The most notable difference is that ravens are absent throughout most of the midwest and the southeast.  Crows on the other hand, occupy most American states with the exception of the southwestern part of the country.  The below maps from Cornell’s All About Birds website offer more specific breakdowns (hover over the images to see the caption).

Common raven range map
American crow range

With respect to habitat, both birds are considered generalists, with ravens erring more towards what one might describe as an “extreme generalist”. Ravens can be found along the coast, grasslands, mountains (even high altitude mountains), forests, deserts, Arctic ice floes, and human settlements including agricultural areas, small rural towns, urban cities (particularly in California) and near campgrounds, roads, highways and transfer stations. Crows meanwhile are more firm in their requirement of a combo of open feeding areas, scattered trees, and forest edges.  They generally avoid continuous forest, preferring to remain close to human settlements including rural and agricultural areas, cities, suburbs, transfer stations, and golf courses.  In cases where roads or rivers provide access, however, they can be found at high elevation campgrounds.

Behavioral differences

There are books that could be (and have been) written on this subject alone, so we will limit ourselves to what is likely to be most essential for identification purposes.

Migration
While common ravens are residents wherever they are found, American crows are what’s called a “partially migratory species” because some populations migrate while others do not.  Most notably, the northern populations of crows that occupy central Canada during the summer breeding season, travel south to the interior United States once the snow-pack precludes typical feeding behaviors

Breeding
Although trios of ravens are not uncommon, and there have been observations of young from previous years remaining at the nest, ravens are not considered cooperative breeders. Crows are considered cooperative breeders across their entire range (though specific rates vary across populations and not much is known about migratory populations).  If helpers are present they typically have between 1-3. So if a nest is very busy with more than two birds contributing to nest construction, feeding nestlings, or nest defense, it’s more than likely a crow’s nest, not a raven’s.

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Common raven eggs left | American crow eggs right

Diet
Although both species consume a host of invertebrates, crows consume a larger proportion of inverts and garbage relative to ravens.  Mammals, especially from carrion, meanwhile make up the largest proportion of a raven’s diet across surveyed populations.  Access to refuse and population location, however, can dramatically shift the dietary preferences of both these omnivores.

Flight
Because ravens consume a lot more carrion, which is unpredictable in its availability and location, they spend a great deal more soaring than crows do.  So if you see a black bird cruising the sky for more than a few seconds, it’s most likely a raven.  Ravens are also unique from crows in that they barrel roll to advertise their territory.  So if you see a  barrel rolling bird, there’s a better chance it’s a raven.

Interactions
In places where they do overlap, interactions between the two are often antagonistic, with crows acting as the primary aggressors in conflicts.  Ravens will depredate crow nests if given the chance.

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A raven defends itself from a crow by rolling upside down.  Someday I’ll get a better photograph…

Genetic differences

Throughout most of our history, we have used external cues like appearance, voice and behavior, to sort one kind of animal from another.  Now that we have access to a plethora of genetic tools, however, we can ask a new level of the question “what’s the difference between an American crow and a common raven.”

To put it simply, American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) and common ravens (Corvus corax) are different species in the same genus, just like lions (Panthera leo) and tigers (Panthera tigris).  Species and genus refer to different levels of the taxonomic tree, where species represents the smallest whole unit we classify organisms.  The issue of species can get complicated quickly, however, so I’ll direct you here if you want to learn what a mess it really is.  Most important thing to appreciate now, is that if you want a quick, back of the envelope way to evaluate if two animals are closely related, look at the first part of their latin binomial (scientific) name.  If they share that part then they’re in the same genus (ex: crows and ravens belong to the genus Corvus).  If they don’t (ex: American crow is Corvus brachyrhynchos and the Steller’s jay is Cyanocitta stelleri) then they are more distantly related. 

Within the Corvus genus, however, there is still a ton of evolutionary space available.  In fact, to find the closest shared relative of common ravens and American crows you’d need to go back approximately 7 millions years.  Although they are more visually distinct and don’t overlap geographically, American crows are more closely related to the collard crows of China, or the carrion crows of Europe, than they are to common ravens.

Crow phylogeny

Image from Jønsson et al. 2012

Laws and protections

US laws
In the United States, both American crows and common ravens are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.  This means that, like with nearly all native birds species, you cannot kill, possess, sell, purchase, barter, transport, or export these birds, or their parts, eggs, and nests, except under the terms of a valid Federal permit. It is this law that prohibits the average person from keeping these birds as pets, and requires that rescued crows be turned over to a licensed professional.  The MBTA also prohibits the civilian hunting of ravens under any circumstance.  Under 50 CFR 20.133, however states are granted an exception for crows, wherein with some restrictions, states can designate regulated hunting seasons.

In addition, under 50 CFR 21.43 of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, you can also kill crows without a license and outside of the regulated hunting season if they are in the act of depredating crops, endangered species, or causing a variety of other destructive issues.  You can obtain the specifics of the Depredation Order here.  Such lethal control must be reported to Fish and Wildlife to remain within the law. No such depredation exceptions exist for ravens. 

Canadian laws
In contrast to the US, no corvids receive federal protections in Canada.  Crows and ravens may receive provincial protections, however.

Concluding thoughts

Before we pack it up, I want to leave you with one last useful piece of information.  This whole article was dedicated to the question of how American crows are different from common ravens.  Hopefully, you’re walking a way with a solid understanding that these animals are in fact different morphologically, behaviorally, and genetically. Asking if American crows are different from common ravens is a different question, though, than asking if “crows” are different than “ravens”.  Because while that first answer is a hard, “yes,” there is no one thing that initially classifies a bird as either a type of raven or a type of crow.  Generally ravens are bigger and have those elongated throat feathers, but there are plenty of crow named birds that could have been named raven and vice versa. So proceed cautiously and consider the specific types of birds the question’s author is referring to before offering specific answers.

If you want to continue to hone your skills I invite you to play #CrowOrNo with me every week on twitter, Instragram and facebook, all at the @corvidresearch handle.  While it’s not to quite this level of detail, I promise it will help advance your ID skills and introduce to to more of the world’s fantastic corvids. For a head start, keep this charming and informative guide illustrated by Rosemary Mosco of Bird and Moon comics handy!

raven vs crow

Reference literature
Jønsson K.A., Fabre P.H., and Irestedt, M. (2012).  Brains, tools innovations and biogeography in crows and ravens.  BCM Evolutionary Biology 12
https://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-12-72

Freeman B.G. and Miller, E.T. (2018).  Why do crows attack ravens? The roles of predation threat, resource competition, and social behavior.  The Auk 135: 857-867

Verbeek, N. A. and C. Caffrey (2020). American Crow (Corvus brachyrhynchos), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.

Boarman, W. I. and B. Heinrich (2020). Common Raven (Corvus corax), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.

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February 25, 2019 · 9:33 pm

The bird of many names

Camp robber. Whiskeyjack. Canada jay. Gray jay.  I know of no other bird that goes by as many names as the Canada jay.  In fact, it has so many names it’s possible for two people to be swapping stories and not even realize they are discussing the same animal. Why this sweet-faced bird possesses a number of aliases better befitting an agent of espionage is, in part, the result of a rather fascinating bit of birding history replete with controversy, colonialism, chaos, and a contest of national importance.

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Before we get to the jays though, I want to put in your mind the image of the Ouroboros. If you’ve never seen it before, the Ouroboros is a symbol from Egyptian iconography that depicts a snake or a dragon eating its own tail. The image is meant to imply infinity; the idea that where you end is also where you begin, on and on, forever. Because, as you’ll see, it’s impossible to tell this story without eating our own tails at many different points along the way. So let’s start with the name that’s both the beginning and potentially the end of this story: Canada jay.

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On May 23rd, 2018 the American Ornithological Society announced that Perisoreus canadensis, the bird formerly known as the gray jay, would be officially recognized as the Canada jay.  Although this change felt disruptive to some, for the folks spearheading the campaign, including foremost Canada jay expert Dan Strickland, this was the righting of a historical wrong more than a half-century in the making.

According to Strickland’s research, which he details in a facinating article called “How the Canada Jay Lost its Name and Why it Matters,” one of the earliest scientific references to this bird was in an 1831 zoology book called Fauna boreali-Americana where they name it as a Canada jay. Even James Audubon used the name Canada jay when he described it in the 1840s. From here the story of the jay’s name gets hairier, with lots of different dates, acronyms, and taxonomic nuance, but I want to try and take you through it because it tells you so much about why things ended up as they did.

During the early 1800’s the process of discovering* and naming birds was something of a wild west operation. It wasn’t until 1883 that an official body, the American Ornithologist’s Union, AOU, (now called the American Ornithology Society, AOS), was formed to take leadership and help legitimize the field of ornithology in North America. Part of this goal was to act as the official body for taxonomic and nomenclature decisions. In keeping with this goal, AOS publishes a checklist of North American birds every decade or so. So who is on that list, and what they call it, means a great deal. For the first two publications (1886 and 1895) our bird was called the Canada jay, but then after 1895 all more or less goes to hell.

At the root of this naming disaster was a failure to provide a clear and rigorous English naming system at both the full and subspecies level. Instead, the system (if you could call it that) was that birds with only one species (monotypic species) were given a binomial Latin name and an English common name, but birds with subspecies (polytypic species) like our bird, may or may not be given an English common name or a Latin binomial name. Instead, their subspecies were given Latin trinomial names and English common names. What this meant is that if you saw a Canada-jay like bird, unless you knew which subspecies it was, the best your guide could tell is that it was merely a Perisoreus jay. This also meant that the name “Canada jay” effectively got downgraded to describing a single subspecies: Perisoreus canadensis canadensis. An effort to name yet another Perisoreus subspecies, Perisoreus obscurus griseus, appears to be when the name “gray jay” first comes into play.

I doubt anyone would question why failing to provide common names to full species would cause confusion, but matters were made worse because there was no system in the nomenclature behind the common names for the subspecies. This lead to problems like not being able to identify from the English name alone if you were talking about a species or a subspecies, and having subspecies from different respective species sharing the same root name. For example “clapper rail” could refer to subspecies of either Rallus obsoletus or Rallus longirostris.

In the late 1930s, people grew increasingly frustrated with this system and started to put pressure on AOS to develop a more logical naming scheme. At the forefront of this effort was a recommendation by Alden Miller to adopt a system where full species would be given English common names and binomial Latin names, and subspecies would only be provided a trinomial latin name. For example, Perisoreus canadensis would be given the English common name of Canada jay, and its Alaskan range subspecies would be known only as Perisoreus canadensis fumifrons.

Although this scheme was well supported, during the 1940 vote, it was inexplicably voted down. Instead, in 1947 the committee welcomed a new system where both the full species and the subspecies were given common names but, in an attempt for clarity, required that the subspecies’ common name was both rooted in the full species’ common name and geographically relevant. It’s this decision that officially killed the “Canada jay” because the committee likely felt it would be too geographically awkward to have subspecies names like the “Alaskan Canada jay” or the “Oregon Canada jay” and so instead, they opted for gray jay as the official full-species name.

By 1954, however, this system grew too taxing and the committee essentially adopted Miller’s 1930’s suggestion: only full species get official common names and subspecies are named and identified by their trinomial Latin name. For some reason, though they did not revert back to the original* name of Canada jay as their rules suggested they should, and instead they curiously retained the name gray jay. This may have been the last of it if not for a ~political~ controversy that would rock the nation of Canada a half-century later.

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In 2015 the Royal Canadian Geographical Society sought to declare a national bird of Canada, a spot that remained egregiously vacant, by hosting a massive public vote to choose among 40 potential candidates. As the popular vote neared an end, five front runners had emerged: the gray jay, the Canada goose, the common loon, the black-capped chickadee and the snowy owl. Ultimately, the common loon would go on to win the popular vote by a 10% margin. Once voting closed, however, the RCGS convened a panel of experts to debate which bird they thought was most worthy. To the shock and upset of the voters, in 2016 RCGS ultimately chose the gray jay, a bird many voters complained did not have the connotation of national pride that the loon did. In the end, though, none of it-the year and a half long competition, the 50,000 votes, the ensuing controversy-mattered because the actual Canadian government had no interest in naming a national bird.

Still, the public’s perception that the jay was not a strong enough symbol did not sit well with Canadian jay scientists like Strickland and Ryan Norris who knew of the jay’s more patriotic heritage. Determined to understand and ultimately reverse the 1954 ruling, Strickland set out to show AOS that the decision to retain the name “gray jay” was not in keeping with their own rules. And, as you already know, in 2018 he succeeded; the bird formerly known as the gray jay (which was formerly known as the Canada jay) is now officially reknown as the Canada jay. The Ouroboros has finally caught its tail. Well, for many people it has.  I want to enter yet one more heir into this contest, the one that I believe holds the most legitimacy to the throne: the whiskeyjack.

Unlike the name might suggest, whiskeyjack isn’t derived from campfire tales about these gregarious birds robbing campers of their whiskey.  It’s an English name derived from the indigenous Cree (and other Algonquian family languages) name for the bird, Wisakedjak. In Cree culture (and some other First Nations peoples of the subarctic region) Wisakedjak is a sacred figure who is known as a trickster and in some cases for being among the creators of the world.  It’s a befitting name for this clever little corvid and the merits of its legacy are without question.  In fact “whisker-jack” can even be found in the English literature as early as 1740, nearly one hundred years before the name Canada jay would first be used. I’m not alone in my support either, even during the 1947 debate, L.L. Snyder notes that “‘Whiskeyjack’ is used universally in the north (& will continue to be).”

Throughout this article, you may have noticed the occasional * following words like “original” or “discovered” and that’s because those words are only relevant when thinking about natural history in post-colonial terms. But the truth is that most wildlife were already known, already named, already studied by the various peoples that called this continent home before their lands were taken from them, and their traditional knowledge erased in favor of a Western approach. So if our goal is to honor the heritage of this bird, I can think of no name more appropriate than the “whiskeyjack jay.” That is the return to the beginning that this magnificent bird deserves.

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December 21, 2018 · 4:19 pm

A matter of a pinion

Like all subcultures, the world of corvidphilia comes with its own set of corny jokes and puns.  Of these, perhaps none is more well known than the classic: “What do you call two crows?”

“An attempted murder.”

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Despite their groan-inducing nature, I consider myself a connoisseur of such jokes.  After all, it’s rather flattering that crows are such a cultural fixture that they get their own jokes and cartoons.

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There’s one joke though, that I have no choice but to spoil in the name of scientific accuracy. After all, what kind of scientist would I be if I left semi-obscure memes about crows go unchecked?

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There are many version of the “matter of a pinion” joke but this one is the most cringe-inducing for me because it has the audacity to present itself as scientific fact.  The truth is, not only do corvids have far fewer than sixteen primaries, but the entire premise of the joke is simply wrong.

All birds have at least nine primary feathers, but most birds, particularly within the passerines, have ten on each wing.  Even outside of passerines, most birds have only ten, though there are exceptions.  Flamingos, for example, have twelve, and ostriches have sixteen.  Crows and ravens, on the other hand, are in no way exceptional, either from the norm or each other.

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American crow wing.  Photo c/o the Slater Museum of Natural History.

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Common raven wing.  Photo c/o the Slater Museum of Natural History.

So, no, the difference between crows and ravens is not, in fact, a matter of a pinion.  There’s one thing I do want to point out, though, particularly for you #CrowOrNo players.  While it’s true that crows and ravens have the same number of primaries, they do look different enough that in flight you can often identify a bird as either a crow or a raven based on its primaries.  Of the ten primaries, there is a handful that is longer and more distinct than the others, making them look kind of like “fingers”.  Looking at the wing pictures above, you can see that the crow has five evident finger feathers (feathers 5-9) whereas ravens only have four (feathers 6-9).  This difference is a bit easier to detect on birds in flight than on these static wing specimens.

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Common raven in flight showing the typical four “finger” feathers.

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American crow in flight with five evident “finger” feathers.

So with this in mind, it’s possible that with a little handwaving you can actually get away with saying the difference between a crow and a raven is a matter of a pinion, but by now there’s not much of the joke left since you have to leave off the initial context.  A much more scientifically sound version, however, would be to compare crows and song sparrows, which only have nine primaries.  “What’s the difference between a crow and a song sparrow?”

“It’s just a matter of a pinion!” And then, as with any good joke, you would explain to your audience the scientific merit of the punchline by describing the technicalities of wing feathers.

Funny right?

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So what’s your favorite corvid joke? Let me know in the comments!

***

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November 2, 2018 · 10:22 am

Denali field notes: Wildlife report

One of my followers on Instagram recently requested a list of all the wildlife I’ve seen in the park.  Since my stay has (for now) come to and end, it’s actually a great opportunity to look back on everything I’ve enjoyed while I’ve been here.  Which animal would you most want to see?  Let me know in the comments!

Mammals
1. Voles.  Unfortunately this is only animal I neither have photos of nor can ID to species.  When you see a vole the sighting usually goes something like this “look there’s a v-” and then it’s gone. Not much time to even wrap your head around it, frankly.  Though I did get one good look once when I got to see one swim across a puddle at my feet.

2. Red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). If you follow me on Twitter you’ll know I was quite enamored with their mighty middens.

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3. Short-tailed weasel (Mustela erminea). Easily one of my favorites of the trip.  They are as hilarious to watch as they are adorable.  It’s like if squirrels rebranded their frenetic stress into something cool.

4. Collared pika (Ochotona collaris). Like hares and rabbits, although pikas may look rodent-like they are actually in the lagomorph family. Pikas can be found on rocky hillsides throughout the park.

5. Arctic ground squirrels (Spermophilus parryii). You can easily find these critters all over the Eielson visitor center, but they’re abundant across most of the park too

6. Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus). There are at least a half dozen muskrats making their home in Horseshoe Lake alongside the beavers that keep it dammed it up.

7. Snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus).  You can learn more about these animals in this post.

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8. Red fox (Vulpes vulpes). I spotted a fox while en route from Wonder Lake to Eielson, but it was too far off to bother with a photo for.

9. Canada lynx (Lynx canadensis). I was really, really hopeful to see a lynx but until now that’s resulted in nothing more than disappointment.  Finally success!

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The remaining 5 mammals I’ve already dedicated an entire post to.  Check it our here!

10. Grey wolf (Canis lupus)

11. Dall sheep (Ovis dalli)

12. Caribou (Rangifer tarandus)

13. Girzzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis)

14. Moose (Alces alces)

Birds
15. Boreal chickadee (Poecile hudsonicus). These little winter warriors are everywhere, and are always tricking us into thinking they’re jays and then laughing at us for confusing such a tiny bird with a corvid.

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16. Common redpoll (Acanthis flammea).  I didn’t see any when I was here last March, so this was a lifer for me!

17. Dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis). A familiar face from Washington.

18. American tree sparrow (Spizella arborea).  I spotted this one with help from birder extraordinare Noah Strycker, who joined us for a few days to help with data collection.

19. Lincolns sparrow (Melospiza lincolnii).  These birds joined us on one of my favorite hikes of the trip.

20. White-winged crossbill (Loxia leucoptera).  Like all crossbills, these birds use their amazingly adapted bills to fiddle with spruce cones.  They move through areas in fairly large flocks chattering up a storm and raining cones down in their wake.  Then like a flash they are gone.

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21. Pine grosbeak (Periporphyrus erythromelas). The males can be easily mistaken for a crossbill at first glance, but their bulky size and beautiful song distinguishes them.

22. American dipper (Cinclus mexicanus). America’s only aquatic songbird.  We saw a pair of these birds mulling around Horseshoe Lake.

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23. Varied thursh (Lxoreus naevius). If you’ve never heard it, the varied thrush produces a very whistle-like tone sung in a single pitch for about two seconds. For me, these sounds are familiar forest sounds, but for many visitors these birds and their calls are completely foreign. As a result, evidently it’s not uncommon for visitors to mistake their calls for emergency whistles and report them to park law enforcement!

24.  American robin (Turdus migratorius). A turd I can’t live without.

25. American three-toed woodpecker (Picoides dorsalis).  For all the dead trees around here I am frankly surprised we didn’t see more woodpeckers.  It took about five weeks before I finally saw my first one!  Then it was like we couldn’t shake them.

25. Canada jay (Perisoreus canadensis). It would have been kinda a problem if these birds hadn’t made the list.

26. Boreal owl (Aegolius funereus).  This sleepy bae was very rudely awakened by some cranky Canada jays.  It just gave them a few robotic blinks and went back to sleep.

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27. Merlin (Falco columbarius).  These birds are so fun to watch, but I only ever caught the occasional glimpse while driving through the park.

28. Black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia). For such a pretty bird they are darn camera shy!

29. Greater scaup (Aythya marila).  I was a little late to see much in the waterfowl department but we did see a few of these in the kettle ponds near Wonderlake

30. Northern hawk owl (Surnia ulula).  This picture is from last spring, but I am claiming the right to never need another hawk owl photo again.

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31. Northern goshawk (Accipiter gentilis). Don’t let their scientific name fool you.  These are serious murder birds and probably the number one killer of hares that we encountered.

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A goshawk chases a raven. 

32. Gyrfalcon (Falco rusticolus).  Man I wish I have been able to capture one of these in full glory.  Such beautiful falcons.

33. Willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus).  The state bird of Alaska! Like the hare and the stoat, these birds adopt a new look during the winter.  This one was early in the transition.

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34. Spruce grouse (Falcipennis canadensis).  I wrote about a cool encounter with these birds in an earlier post.

35. Common raven (Corvus corax).  Somebody find me a project so I can study these next!

36. Great-horned owl (Bubo virginianus). It’s within the realm of possibility that this particular GHOW killed one of our jays, but the evidence was circumstantial so I won’t hold them to account just yet.

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37. Sandhill crane (Grus canadensis).  Listening to them fly over the park as they begin their fall migration is a sound so beautiful that it hurts to think how few people will get to hear it in their lifetime. 

38.  Golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos). Okay, so I didn’t take this picture in Denali, but I couldn’t have ended on a picture-less note! Plus, look at that handsome devil.  My goodness.

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Enter a caption

 

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October 19, 2018 · 8:36 am

You need to know more about jay spit

Look, I’m a reasonable person.  I know what you’re thinking.

“Literally never has it occurred to me I might know too little about jay spit.”

But here’s the thing: it’s actually super interesting and you really can’t understand Canada jays without knowing about their saliva.  It would be like trying to understand the internet without cat videos-you just can’t do it.  So trust me when I tell you this is the information you didn’t know you needed.

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In the early 1960’s Walter Brock was examining Canada jay corpses when he discovered that they have massive salivary glands on par with the ones found in woodpeckers.1 Such generously sized glands are found in no other songbird.  Furthermore, like the woodpeckers, it’s not just that Canada jays make a lot of saliva, but they make a lot of sticky saliva.  At the time this discovery was made, it was already known that the enlarged glands of woodpeckers served to allow for a foraging tactic called “tongue probing” where, like anteaters, the birds use their long sticky tongues to extract food from narrow crevices.  Although Canada jays don’t have especially long tongues, the ability to tongue probe seemed the most parsimonious explanation for this strange adaptation, and Brock suggested that this strategy may actually be the key to the jays’ winter survival.  A study a few years later examining their foraging behavior revealed that they don’t feed in this manner, however.  They feed more or less the same way the other corvids do.2  It seems instead, that it’s what they do with the food after that’s different.

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Rather than using their copious amounts of weird, sticky spit for acquiring food, it’s used for depositing it.  If you watch a jay closely after it’s got a bit of food you’ll notice it seems to have missed Emily Post’s memo about chewing with your mouth closed. Over the course of a few seconds you’ll see the food peek out from the bill as the bird moves it around inside its mouth.

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This jay picked up this bit of food about 60sec before this photo was taken.  Now it’s working it around with its tongue, coating it in sticky saliva.

Once sufficiently spit coated, the bird will deposit the food blob (called a bolus) onto the foliage or trunk of a tree.  No matter the material or angle, once the spit dries the food is safely secured come hell or high-water.  Because these caches are pretty small there’s little fear that many will be found.  More importantly, by stashing food high in the trees instead of burying them into the ground like many other cache-dependent corvids do, Canada jays can thrive in areas that receive much heavier snowfall, allowing them the title of the most northern residing jay in North America.

A cached cranberry
A cached blueberry
Look at all that spit!
A cached grub

Here’s where it all really comes together though.  If you’ve seen me write about Canada jays before you’ll have noticed that it’s almost inevitable that I’ll use the phrase “Cute little faces” at some point to describe them.  But have you ever wondered why? Why do they have such cute little faces?  While jays do feed more or less in the same way as other corvids the one exception is that they don’t hammer at objects.  If you’re ever given a crow or a Steller’s an unshelled peanut you’ll know exactly the motion I mean. Without the need the hammer objects, or dig holes for burying food, Canada jays don’t need the heavy bills their cousins do.2  Instead they have the blunt little bill that helps give them their characteristic baby-faced look.  So not only is their spit responsible for their ability to tough it out in some of the harshest winter environments this continent offers, but it also means they get to look super cute while doing it.

So like I said, you don’t really know Canada jays until you know a thing or two about their spit.

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Literature cited

  1.  Brock WJ. (1961). Salivary glands in the gray jay (Perisoreus). The Auk 78: 355-365
  2. Dow DD. (1965). The role of saliva i food storage by the gray jay.  The Auk 82: 139-154

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April 12, 2018 · 1:42 am

Meet Ferdinand

Around this time last year I was both delighted and intrigued when a reader emailed me about a very usual crow showing up in her yard.  Unlike its flock mates this crow was not black, but white and brown, like the kind of milked-down coffee that inspires the comment “would you like some coffee with your cream?”.  Understanding what would cause such a unique coloration in her crow sent me down a most unexpected rabbit hole where the science of what I call ‘caramel crows’ turned out to be somewhat subject to mystery.

Within months of publishing that article, I couldn’t believe my luck to encounter a caramel crow of my own named Blondie.  Whereas the science of their pigmentation may be up for debate, their beauty most certainty is not and I considered myself exceptionally lucky to lay eyes on one in person.

Photos of Blondie from 2017

Now, it seems my perception of their rarity may not have been quite justified as I have since discovered yet a second caramel crow, who I call Ferdinand, in a completely different part of the city.  Unlike Blondie, who lives exclusively in a residential area, Ferdinand’s haunts include a public park.  I won’t give his or her precise location, but if you’re a Seattle native I encourage you to use the clues provided in the text and photos of this post to see if you can find Ferdinand.  If you do use the hashtag #FoundFerdinand to update us on its activities but remember not to give away its precisely location.  This is both to encourage people to get outside and explore on their own, and to protect Ferdinand’s safety.  If seeming him in person is not possible I hope these photos will suffice.  As a last bit of fun feel free to let me know in the comments who you think wore it better, Ferdinand or Blondie.

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