I think it’s fair to say that corvids (crows and ravens) are amongst our most misunderstood and reviled birds.
First of all what is the difference between crows and ravens? Like “ducks” and “geese”, these are not scientific terms, both crows and ravens belong to the same genus, Corvus, but there are some differences in practise, which is why the separate terms have probably evolved to begin with.
Ravens are slightly stockier and wider across the pelvis. Their throat hackles are longer and more pronounced, and crows will occasionally hop, whereas ravens only walk.
In our area we have the Torresian crow and occasionally the Australian raven. With a little practise they are fairly easy to tell apart. The Australian raven is the larger of the two and has very pronounced throat hackles, and when it calls it really hangs on to the last note arhg-argh-aaaaaaaargh. The Torresian crow is very common in our area, it has almost indistinct throat hackles and its call is a fairly even argh-argh-argh. If it is windy another easy way to tell these two apart is to look at the feathers around the head and neck – as the wind blows and parts them, the Torresian crow will have a white base to the feathers, and the Australian raven will have a greyish base to its head feathers.
Crows and ravens are well known for their intelligence. In fact just as we stand out as being so much smarter than other primates, so too do they stand out as being so much more smarter than other songbirds (which is the order of birds they belong to). “Bird brain” used to be an insult, but in fact birds have around twenty times more neurons per unit of brain volume than mammals do. Compared with a comparably sized primate brain crows and ravens, along with parrots, actually have more neurons and greater mental processing powers. This allows them to think and process information very quickly, as well as solve problems and learn and pass on information.
For this reason crows and ravens have been able to adapt very well to the way we have modified their environment. Torresian crows for example are well known for entering chook yards to take eggs, getting a free feed from road kill on the side of the road, and retrieving fast food packaging from bins, and then emptying the bags out to reveal the food inside. Once at Lake Annand I witnessed one rolling a softdrink cup along its side until the straw hole was at the bottom so the liquid could flow out for it to drink. Bringing dry food to bird baths, or wet gutters, to soften it up is another common site. The New Caledonian crow, which is perhaps the most intelligent of all birds, will make tools out of sticks to enable it to extract boring grubs from timber.
There is a limit to their intelligence though, when I lived in Brisbane I was very intrigued to watch two of our local Torresian crows raise a Channel-billed cuckoo chick as their own. As the chick grew larger than them, and they struggled to keep up with its demands, it was clear it wasn’t their own, and you’d think they’d just abandon it. However this didn’t happen because nesting and chick raising is highly instinctual in birds, almost like a computer programme, and once it has begun it is very hard to alter or switch off. So these two crows felt compelled to raise this chick, even though it was costing them dearly.
So next time you see a crow (or raven!) spare a thought for it – they may at times annoy you, but it’s really just a product of how wonderful they are.
This article first appeared in the Crows Post, July 2025