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Woohoo this week’s #CrowOrNo challenge has officially dropped! Will you be victorious this week? Only one way to find out! Give it your best shot and if you’re feeling up for it post your answer in the comments. All skill levels welcome. Answer at 5:30PST! 🍀 
Wow wow wow, lots of #CrowOrNo players this week and-spoiler alert but not really because it’s answer time-most of them were correct! That’s right folk’s this week’s challenge was a raven!
Specifically this is a common raven I photographed in @DenaliNPS last month. This is a male that was standing guard while its mate incubated eggs nearby.
So if you found yourself on #teamcrow where could you have looked for things to have gone right? Let’s start with the objective stuff.
Always the best place to start is with the throat. The light is crappy in this photo but even so you can still make out the hackles with a zoom. With a lighting adjustment you can see them even better.
Crow throats OTOH are smooth and with practice you can see the difference more easily. I’d say the next tell is the tail. Normally I don’t find tails on perched birds all that helpful but here the characteristic diamond shape is obvious. A crow’s tail would be less tapered.
A lot of folks though were showing off their skills with the more subjective clues, something that just comes with practice. Ravens are bigger and more robust than the North American crows and it is evident in their body size and bill heaviness.
I think it’s especially noticeable when you compare the feathering on the bill. Crows’ bills plateau for a few millimeters after the nasal feathers before they curve downward, whereas raven’s turn downward right away (generally speaking; individual results vary)
So there you have it folks! I hope these tips were helpful and congrats to all the folks that were able to put previous errors to good use this week. See you next time!
