American Crow in Ontario, Canada. Photo by J.P. Moczulski © 2009 A Murder of Crows, Inc.
Crows are members of the Corvidae family, which also includes ravens, magpies, and blue jays. Loud, rambunctious, and very intelligent, crows are most often associated with a long history of fear and loathing. They are considered pests by farmers trying to protect their crops and seedlings. Many people fear them simply because of their black feathers, which are often associating them with death. But research demonstrated in A Murder of Crows proves crows are actually very social and caring creatures, and also among the smartest animals on the planet.
Where do crows live?
Crows live all over the world, except for Antarctica.
What do they eat?
Crows are predators and scavengers, which means that they will eat practically anything. Their diet consists of various road-kill, insects, frogs, snakes, mice, corn, human fast food, even eggs and nestlings of other birds. An adult crow needs about 11 ounces of food daily.
How many species are there?
There are about 40 or so species in the Corvus genus. These range from pigeon-sized birds to ravens, which can be as much as 24-27 inches long.
Social Environment
Crows are very social and have a tight-knit family. They roost in huge numbers (in the thousands) to protect themselves from enemies like red-tailed hawks, horned-owls, and raccoons. Crows also use at least 250 different calls. The distress call brings other crows to their aid, as crows will defend unrelated crows. Crows mate for life.
Close Relatives
The Corvus genus includes the common American crow, ravens, rooks, and other variations, and the wider family (Corvidae) includes jays, magpies, nutcrackers, and other birds.
Crows and West Nile Virus
Crows are susceptible to West Nile virus, and their deaths are used as early indicators of potential human disease in an area. West Nile Virus has killed 45% of American crows since 1999, though they’re still listed as Least Concern species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
What’s a murder of crows?
A group of crows is called a “murder.” There are several different explanations for the origin of this term, mostly based on old folk tales and superstitions.
For instance, there is a folktale that crows will gather and decide the capital fate of another crow.
Many view the appearance of crows as an omen of death because ravens and crows are scavengers and are generally associated with dead bodies, battlefields, and cemeteries, and they’re thought to circle in large numbers above sites where animals or people are expected to soon die.
But the term “murder of crows” mostly reflects a time when groupings of many animals had colorful and poetic names. Other fun examples of “group” names include: an ostentation of peacocks, a parliament of owls, a knot frogs, and a skulk of foxes.
Has anyone ever seen a real crow in City Park, New Orleans? Would love to see one!
As a boy I rescued a crow chick that had fallen out of the nest (and I couldn’t return it.) I raised it on dog food (it was a well fed bird) and it grew large. When released it befriended a rook (another corvid) and we saw it around the neighborhood for many year. Wonderful intelligent bird. :)
My backyard was visited by a crow with a broken leg this past March. I began feeding it scraps of food on a daily basis and would leave it a dish of fresh water everyday. Before long, I began hearing a knocking sound on my back deck followed by a loud clicking noise. It was my friend knocking her beak on the wooden railing on the deck and would follow the knock by uttering a loud clicking sound. This became her way of letting me know that she was there and hungry. Well, a couple of months passed and she would soon show up with her two young offspring. I had the great pleasure of watching her feed her young and teach them to eat on their own. What was the most interesting to observe is that she would take a piece of bread and hobble over to the water dish and place the bread in the water. With this, she taught her young how to soften the food and eat it on their own. Her young have left my backyard now, but she remains a daily visitor. Her leg has healed well and she is now able to walk on it. I am assuming that this crow is a female, but it could very possibly be a male teaching his young as is the case with my pet lovebirds.
I live in Lemay Missouri. Three years ago we had an outbreak of West Nile Virus that killed most of the crows and blue-jay in my area. I am just now starting to see the crows returning in my area. It’s really funny since there are no OLD CROWS to teach the young ones what they need to know.
This past summer the young crows were acting like juvenile delinquents gone amuck.
By the end of summer things had normalized somewhat. I never thought I would be happy to see a murder of crows, but I have been.
When I visited the Tower of London, one of the staff pointed our the poles in the courtyard upon which the severed heads of the unfortunate victims of the Prisons “Justice System” had been placed. The Royal Ravens had consumed them then, and now, here in our midst were ravens still flying about and perching upon these poles. I wondered then and now, did these modern ravens carry the knowledge of their ancestors, and were they still waiting for a meal?
Yes! I spend a lot of time in City Park and have seen crows in various places–the abandoned golf course, outside the Carousel Gardens, and in the field in front of the Sculpture Garden.
What an interesting show. We live on a lake and love the crows, they clean the dead fish from the beach. They’re so much fun to watch—–they started to eat cat food left for outside cats so now we feed them too, I watched one stack 3 crackers perfectly so he could fly off with them at once. My six month old kitten watched the entire show so I bought the dvd I think I’ll give it to him for Christmas!
Hello:
What an amazing program on crows. Here goes my story:
My office occupies an area of 8 acres in my small City.
Years ago, I decided to learn how to make bread. When it didn’t
turn out the way I wanted, I would get irritated at myself, rip the
loaves up and throw them outside my office. The ravens would
end up eating the rejected loaves and I would go back to the
drawing board. This happened a lot until I finally got the type
of bread that I wanted. My office area is fenced in and gated.
Years later, as I am opening up my gates, I hear a raven or
ravens cawing and I look up. I see a raven or ravens on the utility
pole and in the trees – looking at me ! I’m wondering what is
going on Why are they looking at me ? This happened often.
I’d see them hanging from the branches of the pine trees in my
office area and wonder. They would boldly walk around my office
area and ravens are very cautious. I finally realized what was up
and I would then feed them.
Its so nice to be remembered !!! Maybe the bread wasn’t so
bad after all !
What an experience !
Best wishes to all of you,
Alan De Luca.
I saw an amazing display of crows one fall evening, just before sunset, in the Arlington, VA neighborhood of Rosslyn, which has a lot of tallish office buildings (about 15 stories.) surrounding several parking lots. Many hundreds of crows flew in and roosted on the top ledges of several buildings, and periodically they would swoop down in a broad loop that took them to within a few feet above the ground and then to other nearby buildings. They repeated these loops over and over. At the same time, thousands–yes thousands–of sparrows also flew their own loops that began and ended in trees surrounding the parking lot I was standing in. So, there was one loop of crows, and another of sparrows. There wasn’t any overt aggression, but the noise was simply amazing, and the sight of all the birds wheeling against a blood-red sky was like nothing I have seen before or since. Amazingly, I was the only human that seemed at all intrigued by the display, as hundreds of people leaving the office buildings or coming home to nearby apartments never even looked up!
i like crows
I FEED CROWS EVERY DAY ON MY WALKS. THEY GOT TO RECOGNIZE ME AND FLY DOWN AND LAND NEARBY. MAKES MY WALKS ENJOYABLE.
HERB
My Mom is 83 and loves crows, feeds them every day, I would love to get her a DVD of the Murder of Crows, is this possible. LMC
I loved the Murder of Crows. I would love to get a DVD of it…and I also learned so much just from the responses. Wonderful program. I wonder is there any books that this man wrote about his experiences with them.
I was thrilled to see this show about crows and found it very interesting. I love crows, always have, but never realized they were so intelligent. This show was fascinating.
Some of the Crows in tonights Nature – A Murder of Crows program are Ravens and not Crows. I am not a Crow or Raven expert but here are some of the differences:
Ravens will set their wings and glide while Crows keep their wings flapping. Ravens have a rounded end on the tail while Crows have a tail that is square and not rounded. The larger Ravens have feathers on the throat that look like long whiskers. I do not know if the cries of the Raven are like that of the Crows or not. I think that I read ten or twenty years ago that the Ravens were smarter than Crows because the Ravens would retrieve a string with food on the end of it and the Crows did not do this. Ravens have a larger bill than Crows.
Bob Harold
West Salem, WI
I have been feeding and hanging out with crows for several years. I befriended a few who had survived West Nile virus and it took a long time to get their trust. The survivors have since multiplied and every year the offspring become exponentially more trusting of me: I am sure their knowledge of me as a trusted individual who favors them is passed from generation to generation. There are many stories I cannot relate in a small space, but one example is a three-year old crow I call Sam with whom I share a secret. I was present one time a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk chased him when he was also a youngster, and from that day forward he imitated the Cooper’s Hawk’s vocalization perfectly almost every time he saw me. I got so used to this I recently failed to react when a different juvenile Cooper’s Hawk was flying directly overhead because I was in the company of crows I know. I never have to look for my crow friends anymore, they always find me, even after I’ve been gone for weeks. And elsewhere crows I do not know seem to know me: it is as if they see my “inner crow.”
When I was a teenage 40 years ago, my brother and I would often hunt crows. The local farmers always let us use their land duringr the pheasant season if we hunted the crows in the off season. We had decoys, calls, blinds – the whole works. We were not very successful. Crows are the smartest birds by far. Ducks and geese on the other hand are fairly stupid ( you can attract an eider or snow goose within range by flapping a white peice of cloth). We would scout the fields in preparation of our next hunt and see plenty of crows. However, if a crow spied you in a field carrying a shotgun it would alarm the other crows in the vicinity and they wouldn’t come within 100 yards of that field or our decoys. One time we tested them by carrying a broomstick during our scouting expeditions. They wern’t taking any chances! We got to carrying a hand trap and a few clay pigions so we could fire off a few rounds to let the farmer believe we were doing our job. “How many d’jer git” they’d ask. “Five or ten” we’d say. We gave up haunting crow and went to fishing where you only hve to lie about a few inchs or pounds. After viewing this program I truly subscribe to the facial recognition theory. In my experience a crow can recognize an idiot when it sees one.
Best tv ive watched in quite awhile. Love to sit out back in my gazebo watching and listening to the neighborhood crows. Wife thinks im nuts ..lol.. yep morning coffee and the crows thats my happy place.
Would like to sell crow feeders on ebay…..everyones laughs….me and the crows will show them..lol
Barry .K, kitchener ontario. canada
When road-tripping in West Texas at an off-road river crossing, the mighty raven toll-booth worker that rested upon the wooden marker and I had a conversation that lasted almost 20 minutes. Eyes focused, head tilting, caws and all I swear we were totally connected, as I crowed about the beauty of his home and thanked him for the welcoming hospitality. When departing I prayer posed and bowed my head “namaste,” and he did so in return. (At least I think it was a ‘he.’)
When I was a kid growing up in southwestern Ont. ,my older brother and I went into a bush area where to my surprise he had located a nest with 3 young crows who were ready to leave the nest . We caught 2 of them and took them home where we had one of them as a pet for many years. Pat ,as he was known was fodder for many stories, not only in our immediate area of town but from people who had heard the stories . An interesting side line to the many stories that Pat was in on ,was that when we first got him and his brother Pik somewhere along the line my brother heard that if you took a crow to a a vet he could split the crows tongue and the bird could be taught to talk . Well , Pat could certainly talk . Our backyard backed onto a school yard . Pats contact with various jokers through the fence resulted in him beiing able to actually talk.
We had pat for 8 years . As you can imagine he was both a culprit or raskle……but he was one of the most unique pets I can imagine having . We kept his flight feathers trimmed back so he would stay around . Every now and then they would grow out enough that Pat could soar a round the neighbourhood . One of this fanourite things to do was to buzz peolple including kids.
Never really thought I’d see a this kind of in depth look at the potential of these birds , so I thoiught I’d share a little bit of my childhood
Wonderful program. I love crows! When I was a child the neighbor man aquired a crow and the crow ended up hanging around our house as we had 5 kids in our family in a constant state of motion! He loved the action. I used to go outside first thing in the morning and call Homer. He would swoop down from the big cottonwood and land on the deck railing anxious for his breakfast. We were always on our bikes and at some point Homer decided that he wanted to be on a bike too. He would either fly down and land on our shoulder to ride along with us or he would perch on our handlebars where we had applied anti-slipping tape and he would just ride around with us :) Everyone in the neighborhood was accustomed to Homer swooping about and enjoyed his antics. One day Homer decided to pay a visit to the neighborhood a block over-swooping and diving at the frightened-mothers and screaming- children! We heard all kinds of crazy-crow stories. There was something THERE-when we looked into his eyes-which was a little tricky to do because we always thought he might accidentally peck our eyes out!!! He liked shiney things :)
I use to fly radio control slope gliders on the side of different slopes for wind power lift to keep my glider a loft in southern California. We watched Crows, Hawks,Sea gulls to see if their is enough lift at new hills or slope to see if our planes will fly. Also to just watch the beauty of the gliding birds. Most slopes groups or murder of Crows will frequent also to ride the slope lift to rest their wings.
I was looking for a new inland slope on this very windy day a few miles from downtown Temecula,California back a while ago around 1998 to fly at. I spots some crows gliding on this hill so I pulled over to watch . The Crows were playing a game of tag on this slope and executing complicated aerial acrobatics to escape the crow who was it. They were doing barrel rolls and steep climbs and dives or what we called half piping like they were on skateboard ramp because the wind was so powerful they did not have to hardly flap their wings just gliding back and forth on the slope like we did with our planes.
To get away from the crow that was it when the crow who was it would catch another crow by hitting his tail feathers. That Crow would be it and would try to chase another crow down. I sat down and watch this crow game of tag for about a hour and then the crows took off.
I have always liked to watch crows during the fall where I live in North San Diego county you get great crow migration they seem to follow the coast and Interstate 5 during the fall months.
I use to see 100 to a thousand crows landing on the building in the carmel valley area next to interstate 5 and the 805 split at sundown. During my evening commute you would see every fall the crows landing on these same buildings. It pretty cool it like a motel 6 for them as stop off point for the night.
There is a small family of four crows in our neighborhood. I like to feed the birds in the winter, so I bought a squirrel-proof feeder. One cold day I saw two squirrels rooting around under the feeder for a seed that might have escaped the birds. It was obvious that one of the squirrels was nursing some kits, and I felt sorry for her, and so I put some corn and peanut butter out for her. Soon, several crows were helping themselves to the squirrel food too. Now I buy some extra bread for the crows. The crow family of four comes around in the afternoon, waiting for their treat. They have become pretty tame and do not fly away when I come out with the bread. I speak to them in a soft voice, and they seem to know me. They have quite a vocabulary of vocal calls, and I think I have figured out which call means “food is here”.
I live fairly high in the mountains of Colorado. In the summer I always leave a large tray of water on my deck for the birds because water gets scarce here in the summer. This past summer I noticed that a lot of peanut shells were mysteriously appearing on my deck. This went on for days until I discovered the culprit. Somewhere someone was feeding a crow unshelled peanuts (or it was stealing them) and it was dunking the unshelled peanuts in the water tray, either to soften up the shells or to rid the peanuts of salt. This same crow (who is banded and also now has a mate) has become a frequent visitor and will also dunk hard dry bread into the water for a couple of minuets to soften it.
Can someone tell me why American Crows have those long, string-like feathers on either side of their beaks? Does it aid their vission?
I loved the nature show on crows too, but had already discovered how smart they were. I feed them peanuts in the shell and they instinctively know how to open them. They get to know your face and I couldn’t leave the house without feeding them and if I didn’t have any peanuts they would follow me down the road flying above me and then landing a few feet ahead of me as if to say I’m here, feed me. They make such good parents too, they are so protective of their young. I like to watch them at night when they gather iin flocks to roost together. I wish I could follow them to their roosting areas, it would be fun to watch the congregate together.
I have a question. What happens if one has a dog that likes to chase wildlife in their back yard? Will Crows still come looking for Goodies?
We have had a couple of crows that have very visable white plumage in their wings. The one that was born last year (2010) had a very nice zig, zag in his or her wings when in flight almost how you would see in an indian headdresse. We nicknamed it “White Wing” after a documentery that we watched on one of the nature channels. We were fortunate enough to get a couple of pictures of it although a bit blurry. This bird mated this past year and had an offspring with white feathers in it’s wings but not as nice as his mother or father. The odd thing about this is we fed this bird all through the winter months and in May we were away for a few weeks and never saw it again, leading us to beleive that it must have died somehow, but as the young ones started to leave the nest, we saw the new one. This morning when I went out to feed them, I was taken back to find it on the ground under a tree in our back yard. We had hoped that we could have watched these remarable birds throughout the coming years. In all my years of crow sighting these have been the very first that we have actually seen with white feathers.
Yes crows are very smart. Watch and listen to them. I grew up in Kansas on a farm. We would shoot them every ime we saw them as they would destroy a lot of things. I grew up with this always on my mind. Now 70 years later, I still dislike crows very much. They kill the smaller finches we feed and love to watch. They kill the baby squirrels that live in our neighborhood. They sit on the electric wires that go down the street and poop all over my nice red pickup that I have to park out on the street. Both my neighbors like to feed them and even have a wood carving in their yard. So now I don’t speak to my neighbors like I used to. I have 2 cedar trees in my back yard and there are 2 crows,(a young one and it’s mother) that hang out in them, making all kinds of noise. I would like to come up with something to scare them away as it is against the law where I now live to kill crows. This should make all the crow lovers happy.
There are now 25 crows in our area and there was none 3 years ago. Thanks for feeding them.
around 60 years ago i was walking near an abandoned farm in North Truro, MA. There was a huge old dead tree – no bark left – all silver colored. Hundreds of crows started to fly in from all directions and roost in the branches. It was early afternoon. After they had all settled down they started to caw as if they were talking – not all at once, but taking their turn. After about an hour or less, they all flew off in different directions. I never saw this happen before or again and I was in that area often as I lived near there. I would swear they were having an intelligent meeting, but God knows about what. I didn’t see any lookouts nor did they attack any of the group.
It was definitely interesting.