justaquickquestion

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how would one tell the difference between a crow and a raven?

You might be surprised to learn there are a lot of different species of raven and crow! The taxonomic difference between a raven and a crow (that is, whether a species gets named of or the other) is size and lifespan rather than genetic grouping. When comparing the species most of us are most familiar with  – the American crow (C. brachyrhyncos) and common raven (C. corax), which will be the two I’m focusing on here – you can’t exactly tell the bird’s age most of the time, so if you have other animals or objects to compare the bird to, size is often the first clue. 

The common raven is is massive for a passerine. It’s the size of a red-tailed a hawk, with a wingspan over four feet. Crows, on the other hand, are typically about the size of an African grey parrot. Compare someone holding a crow vs someone holding a raven:

[sources: top, bottom]

And lemme tell ya, it’s one thing to READ about how big they are, but it’s another to SEE it.

If you see a corvid in flight and can’t get a bead on its proportions, the shape of the tail and flight feathers is another good identifier. A crow’s tail is triangular or fan-shaped, while a raven’s is wedge-shaped (ie the middle tail feathers are longest). Both have well-defined primaries, but a raven’s are much deeper and tend to spread wider. Ravens tend to soar a lot, too; crows are consistent flappers. 

[sources: left, right]

Finally, if you can get a good look at the head, the differences are pretty obvious. A raven has a beak that hooks at the end and is as long as its head (or in the case of a Chihuahuan raven, longer than!) while a crow’s beak is straighter, shorter, and lighter-looking in general. Both have nasal bristles, but the shape these bristles form is different due to beak size (a raven’s often looks squared off). Crows are kinda shiny and a bit fluffy; ravens are iridescent and have a very distinctive “beard” of shaggy feathers at their throats which bristles up like hackles when they call.

[sources: top, bottom]

Finally, their voices are a bit different – a crow’s flat, high caw vs a raven’s deep, resonating kronk – but both species have a very wide range of natural vocalisations and are accomplished mimics. [This video] has some great examples of the caw vs kronk sounds.

Hope that helps! o/

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Antifa stickers spotted in Upstate New York

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Accidentally called dumplings "Peking ravioli" in front of my New Jersey coworkers and I had to frantically explain that this wasn't some insane form of esoteric Italo-Chinese racism, that's just what they're called in Boston. Had to take a picture of a menu to prove it.

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GBBO: “A s’more is basically just an Italian merengue sandwiched between two ganache-covered digestives”

Americans:

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my voice is in my sword

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Feeling rough lately.

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I feel cheated. no one on Reddit told me that tumblr is a serotonin factory. Keep liking and reblogging my posts please thanks

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Didn't have "see your political action philosophy expressed by Jorts the cat" on my 2025 bingo card.

All cats are anarchists.

Probably like 80% of cat owners are also anarchists.

Fill ever drawer in the U.S. Treasury with glitter and a note that says Go to Hell.

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Amphibian migration season is coming this spring. Remember to drive slow!

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I keep remembering a run of Hamlet I saw a few years ago, where the Ghost was costumed in full plate armour which was very noisy, and instead of muffling it, they had him crash across the stage, stomping so the whole set rattled, and he said all of his lines in a bellow, like he was furious with Hamlet.

And the thing that made it absolutely terrifying was that Hamlet was the only one who reacted. He was cowering, and covering his ears with both hands, and yelling to be heard over the noise.

And no one else seemed to know why he was doing that. The other actors didn't even raise their voices.

That's scary, something so loud and painful, and REAL, and the people around you don't even notice it, and think that you're the crazy one.

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It's important to summon the creature out of the warp before you start to weave

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One of the things we used to do as kids that will forever be embedded as a strong sense-memory in my brain is on nights with a full moon in deep winter, my siblings and I would layer up in all our snow gear and march out onto the middle of the frozen lake, sit down in a circle and tell ghost stories. No flashlights, no lanterns, just the moonlight bouncing off acres and acres of white and the wind howling; the bite of sub-zero air and the stark clarity of starlight in a high frozen atmosphere. You tell yourself that nothing can sneak up to you on open ice but the snow snaking in the wind makes it seem like things are moving all around you, sneaking low and flat and casting strange pale shadows. Sometimes the snow made sound go dead and still but you could still hear the ice under it all, and the resonance of it made us speak in whispers only. And when our fingers and toes started to go numb and we ran out of stories, we'd slide-march our way back home over the ice again, and half-believe that whatever monsters we had made up were following us back over the endless ice.

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Smol Scale

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you're very good at drawing huge tits. now lets see a fat body. no, a fat body. not thick thighs and big tits, fat. come on now. you're almost there. can we see under the tits? looks like you made the torso flat and thin again. we're almost there

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Astronomical Clock - Prague

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