The Common Raven: Natural History of the Largest Songbird

Common raven (Corvus corax). NPS/Kent Miller.

The deep, echoing croak of the common raven (Corvus corax) sounds across mountains, deserts, forests, tundra and coasts throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The largest songbird, it has 10 subspecies across North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa, and — like its corvid relatives the jays, crows and magpies — it is remarkably adaptable.

Telling it apart

• Glossy black all over as an adult; duller and browner when young.
• Compared with the smaller American crow: a deeper call, a larger, stouter bill, a wedge-shaped tail in flight, and long, raisable throat feathers (hackles).
• With a wingspan over a meter and a habit of soaring, it can be mistaken for a hawk — but its long, pointed bill gives it away.

Where it lives

Ravens live year-round wherever there is food and somewhere to nest. They prefer uninhabited country, but also live in rural and urban areas with steady food, such as garbage dumps.

What it eats

The omnivorous raven is a master forager — carrion, live prey, arthropods, grain and fruit.

• Mammals make up most of its prey; like raptors, it coughs up pellets of fur and bone.
• It attacks rock doves in flight, takes nestlings, and follows wolves to carcasses. Ravens have been seen investigating gunshots in hunting season — presumably looking for a fresh carcass — while ignoring equally loud sounds unrelated to food.
• They learn from each other, and from watching raptors, where to find food.
• That skill makes them unpopular when their prey is a species of conservation concern, such as young desert tortoises or least tern eggs.
• Like all corvids, ravens cache food, usually in the ground — secretively, since other ravens may be watching.

Behavior

• Calls: a large repertoire, with local dialects and individual differences — loud, raspy begging calls of the young, croaks marking location or territory, alarm calls, and the female's knocking or rattle call, among others.
• Play: dives, rolls and loops in the wind, all year and especially in spring.
• Company: usually alone or in pairs, but they gather at rich food sources, and some — mostly non-breeders — roost together, probably sharing information.
• Curiosity: folklore links ravens with shiny objects, with reason. Young ravens investigate all kinds of objects near the nest to see if they are edible; in one study, fledglings strongly preferred objects they had never seen before — neophilia. That curiosity, with their foraging skill, helps explain their adaptability.

Nesting

• Pairs are probably monogamous, roosting together all year and preening each other.
• They breed every year from about 2–4 years old, stepping up courtship and territorial defense in late winter.
• The stick nest, 40–153 cm (15–60 in) across, is lined with mud, fur or shredded bark, usually in a tree or on a cliff ledge — but also on power-line towers, telephone poles and other structures.
• The female lays about 5 oval, green to olive or blue, variably marked eggs; they hatch after almost 3 weeks, and the young fledge in 5–7 weeks.

Fun facts

• A group of ravens is an "unkindness."
• Studies of raven intelligence show they can "count" to seven and solve advanced problems.

Where to see them: ravens are common in all Klamath Network parks — Crater Lake, Lava Beds, Lassen Volcanic, Oregon Caves, Redwood and Whiskeytown — and breed in most. More: crows and ravens compared and young ravens in intelligence tests.

Sources

Based on "Common Raven," prepared by Sonya Daw, NPS Klamath Inventory and Monitoring Network, "Featured Creature," January 2023, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Its photograph of a raven in flight, credited to Frank Lospalluto, is not reproduced.