Raven or Crow?

A black bird lands on your backyard fountain. Is it a raven or a crow?

courtesy of K. Meyer

 

There are a couple of physical traits I look for to help me make the identification:

Size - Is the sitting bird generally the size of an 8"x11" piece of paper from its feet to the top of its head? Or is it smaller? Ravens are big birds. Crows are medium-sized birds. But size can be tricky without something to use for comparison. 

Wing to Tail - When perched, a raven's folded long wings will reach nearly to the tip of its tail. A crow's wings are shorter, proportionately, so the tail appears longer. In the photo above, the bird's wing tips almost reach to the tail. Hmm

Beak - Both crows and raven have feathering onto the upper edge of their beak. The beak of a raven however is large and thick. Its also longer than the head. A crow's beak is long, but not longer than the depth of the head.

Throat - Ravens have shaggy looking feathers under their throats. They can fluff up their throat feathers. They also can hold those feather smooth to the body. The raven, pictured at right, has its throat feathering fluffed up while calling to a mate.

Stance - When sitting, a raven's tail and wings tend to stick down well below their perching feet. Notice in the raven to the right, that the tail is hanging long below the branch. A crow's tail is less long. When sitting, the crow's tail is not far below the feet. See crow below.

Crows also have a greater tendency to flick their tail and wings while sitting. (Notice how the crow's beak is as long as the head is wide.)

So the question remains. Is the bird on the fountain a raven or a crow? It's a raven.

There are differences when these birds are in the air, too. More on that later.

To really get an understanding of the size, see a blue bird on the same fountain.

More on crow behavior

More on raven behavior

 

What Kind of Junco?

My friend Douglas Welch of a Gardener's Notebook recently asked me this question:  

What's the current name for, what I knew as, the Oregon Junco?

male Oregon dark-eyed junco

Sometimes it does seem like bird names are constantly in flux. However, this is a different situation. There are several, what Sibley refers to as "regional populations" of dark-eyed juncos.

Dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) are found across North America. These are migratory birds traveling long or short distances in seasonal north-south migrations. Some regional populations, such as in southern California, migrate within a region by elevation. These forest birds don't like cold, but they aren't keen on hot weather either. They tend toward a moderate climate. (I think I might be a junco.) Most dark-eyed juncos spend the winter in a moderate climate, then migrate north or higher in elevation to breed in a forested area.

The most common dark-eyed junco in California and along the west coast is the Oregon dark-eyed junco. These are the small sparrow-type birds with brownish bodies, white bellies, and a distinctive blackish hood on their head. The males hood is more distinctive, females may appear to have a more gray or "sooty" hood.

Occasionally, we also see slate-colored dark-eyed juncos in the Los Angeles area. We have had a slate-colored junco visit for a short time in 2012 and again this February. These juncos are slightly larger. Their appearance is similar except the dark coloring tends to be more all-over slate gray and the hood is less defined or not defined at all. This junco population is found across the U.S. during the winter and summers in the Taiga forests of Canada, Alaska, and the northeastern U.S. 

In our southern California backyard, we have 2-10 Oregon dark-eyed juncos that spend the winter in the native habitat we've tried to recreate. They tend to arrive late September or early October. In 2014 and this year they arrived Oct. 15 and Oct. 7 respectively. They stay through March. (However, in 2013 they stayed until the first week in April and in 2014 one lingered until May 1.) Initially we had two males that came in 2000. Now we see males and females, but always more males. These individuals always leave to breed somewhere else. They may be only migrating to spend the summer at higher elevations in our neighboring Santa Monica Mountains or they may be going as far as southern Alaska and Canada's Yukon Territory.

I was thrilled in 2013 to see a female Oregon dark-eyed junco raising two chicks in Alaska. I'd never seen dark-eyed junco chicks before. This industrious mom was leading her two flightless youngsters along the ground through the black spruce forest. She was constantly catching insects and stuffing them into open mouths. There was no male around. All of the junco families I saw were single-mom affairs.

In 2014 we saw pink-sided dark-eyed juncos in Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. White-winged, red-backed, and gray-headed dark-eyed juncos are all still on my "to see" list.

For more on identifying dark-eyed juncos check out Cornell's All About Birds.

A Birding Jewel in Los Angeles

The wonderful thing about birding is that you can do it anywhere. I saw my first green woodpecker on the lawn of a hotel just under the wingtips of planes landing at London Heathrow Airport and a Eurasian jay in the ruins of Troy, in Turkey.


But I identified my first white-crowned sparrow in my backyard in the suburbs of Los Angeles. You can travel all over the world looking for exotic bird species, but sometimes the places close to home can offer even greater diversity.

great blue heron

One of my favorite birding locations is in the middle of the suburban bustle of the San Fernando Valley. The Sepulveda Wildlife Refuge is a flood basin along the Los Angeles River. Formerly a sod farm, the low-lying area has been set aside by the Army Corps of Engineers to collect water in the years when we have unusual amounts of rain and the basin floods. 

The sod farm is gone and now native scrub surrounds a pond and riparian habitat. The refuge has become an amazing location to see a wide variety of southern California's bird life and a major stopover for migrating birds. Recently on a Saturday morning in early October, I spotted 37 bird species during a short 2-hour walk.  There were the locals: California and spotted towhees, lesser goldfinch, Anna's hummingbird and black phoebe. The pond provides feeding areas for five species of herons and egrets, and now a belted kingfisher pair. There was even a lone white-faced ibis hanging out with some mallards.


The travelers have begun to pass through and the wildlife area provides important refuge, food and water for migrating species. A beautiful adult male yellow warbler came within a few feet; close enough that I could see the red streaking on his breast without my binoculars. The first of the white-crowned sparrows were in the underbrush, while double-crested cormorants were sizing up the island for nesting and three species of grebe were patrolling the water.


Birds of prey are numerous here as well. I can't think of too many locations where in two hours time you can see an osprey, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk and an American kestrel.


Sepulveda Basin never disappoints me. Whether it is the osprey diving for fish or a family of 22 bushtits making their way through the underbrush, there is always something to thrill and amaze. Take a Mini Birdwalk with video. This birding jewel in the middle of Los Angeles offers numerous bird species anytime of the year and provides easy access to some of California's unique species. Sepulveda Wildlife Refuge in Feb.

Oct. 8,  2011 Species List
mallard
domestic mallard
pied-billed grebe
eared grebe
western grebe
double-crested cormorant
great blue heron
great egret
snowy egret
green heron
black-crowned night heron
white-faced ibis
turkey vulture
osprey
red-shouldered hawk
red-tailed hawk
American kestrel
American coot
mourning dove
yellow-chevroned parakeet
Anna's hummingbird
belted kingfisher
Nuttall's woodpecker
black phoebe
Say's phoebe
bushtit
Bewick's wren
northern mockingbird
European starling
common yellowthroat
yellow warbler
yellow-rumped warbler
spotted towhee
California towhee
song sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
house finch
lesser goldfinch 

Other So. Cal birding areas: Bolsa Chica, Malibu Lagoon, Serrania Park

House Finches

Have you seen a bird slightly larger than a house sparrow fluttering under your eaves? Or maybe they are investigating under your patio roof. The male has purplish-red breeding coloration splashed brightly on his head and chest in the spring. The dowdy female is more mottled brown with white streaks on her chest.

I recently received a question about these delightful little birds and it was a good reminder that just because a species is common, it doesn’t mean that everyone knows about them. House finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) are frequent visitors and residents in Southern California backyards. 


Their nests are half-grapefruit-sized works of art woven of dried grasses and plant fiber. Protected locations under house eaves and on patios are a strong attraction for these builders of delicate nests. As seed-eating song birds, house finches have flourished in suburban landscapes and their numbers have increased as more and more of the American Southwest has been developed.
Today, house finches are found across the United States, but it wasn’t always that way. House finches are originally residents of the Southwest. The male’s coloration is striking and his song is beautiful. People arriving in the Los Angeles area in the 1920’s took to capturing these charismatic finches and sending them east to sell as “Hollywood finches.” Captive birds escaped and founded east coast populations. Today house finches are one of the most observed species at backyard feeders in 48 states. (See the trends for house finch populations for your area at Project Feederwatch)

House finches are not picky feeders. They will eat black sunflower, millet and especially the nyjer seed that also attracts goldfinches. They are also attracted to native plants that produce fruit, like hollyleaf cherry and Catalina cherry. (Creating a yard for wildlife)

Every birder starts with a species that catches their eye and makes them look at birds in a different way. For many people a singing male house finch may be that first bird. While they may be common, house finches are an important species in our local biodiversity.

Identifying Individual Hummingbirds

I had a comment the other day regarding how I tell the difference between the different hummingbirds in the yard. It is somewhat true that they look alike. However, we have been fortunate enough to have a small group of resident Allen's hummingbirds. While some of the marking are slightly different between individuals, especially females, behavior is the main clue to the individual identity of these tiny birds.


The Allen's hummingbirds have divided up the yard into specific territories.

This is "P" (Patio) on her nest. She was a resident for one summer.

Each male has a specific home tree and 3 or 4 specific places that it perches to watch over its territory. Fik was rescued as a fledgling. He knows me and trusts me. I can approach him and get quite close, he in turn will come up to me. He has perched on the same branch, in the same tree, since the first day he learned to fly. Bif perches on the tip of a succulent, he's the only one in the yard that will do that. Canyon is the most timid of the males and rarely comes down in the lower part of the yard.


The females are specifically territorial about nesting sites. These Allen's hummingbird females will nest in the same tree / shrub time and again, especially if they are successful. If it isn't the same tree, it usually is within 10 feet of that tree. One female, DR, (DRiveway) tends to rebuild directly on top of her old nest. She is the only female that has shown this behavior in my yard.


If I saw Fik a block away feeding from some flowers, would I recognize him? Probably not. Coloration can change on birds, from juvenile to mature, from breeding to molting. I have a small group of eight very enigmatic Allen's hummingbirds that live in my yard. They each have their own personalities and behaviors in the yard, that is how I tell them apart.


My friend has 30-50 hummingbirds visiting her feeders during the day. Telling them apart, without bands, would be a completely different matter.

Identifying Local So. California Birds

What's That Bird?

 

Tonight Thursday, October 7th, 7:30 PM
Del Air Rockhound General Meeting
at 
Northridge United Methodist Church
9650 Reseda Blvd., Northridge CA 91324 

Learning to identify local birds is easy if you start with the basics. I'll be doing a basic class on how to identify local species, tonight at the General Meeting of the Del Air Rockhounds. The meeting is open to the general public and everyone is welcome.

Mourning doves, like the one pictured above, have become one of the most common birds seen across the country. In fact one of the families that attending one of my birding classes was able to identify that the bird nesting on their front porch was a mourning dove.

Come join me at the Northridge United Methodist Church tonight for a FREE program and discover the birds in your backyard.

Learn to Identify the Birds in Your Yard

Have you ever looked out into your yard and wondered....

What's That Bird?


Saturday, May 29th, 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM
Woodland Hills Public Library

I'll be doing a basic Birding 101 class on how to identify bird species.

Whether you are 8 or 80, you can learn to identify our local birds. We'll be focusing on the fun and understanding our bird neighbors.

Oh, these big birds on my feeder are native band-tailed pigeons. They are locals who need our help. Before the San Fernando Valley became parking lots and housing tracks, before the citrus and walnut orchards, this big birds roamed under oak trees swallowing acorns whole. No oak trees, no food for these local birds. Their numbers were low and declining, but recently they seem to be improving.

Come join me at the Woodland Hills Public Library for a FREE program and activities.