Day 1258: A "hoarse crow"

[eve_prime]

Lovely weather today - clear skies, upper 70s. Perfect for returning a university library book, including parking south of campus and walking through the pioneer cemetery for a bit of exercise. It's been hard to get much exercise with all the smoke, but today was a reprieve. So I parked and walked half a block and was in the cemetery, strolling along. The birds were mostly quiet, so I hadn't gotten out the Merlin app. Then I heard a crow, and I thought to myself, "Just as well that I didn't get the app running; it's just a crow." Then I thought, "that's a very hoarse crow..." Crows can make quite a variety of sounds. Then I remembered the one time in my life I thought I saw a raven, perched on a phone line near 25th and Harris, one mile from where I was walking.

Naturally I then whipped out my phone and started up the app. Ravens are rare here! The bird was quiet a while, and I was thinking that while I still had its sound in my head I should use the part of the app that plays the sounds typical of the species, my second-best way to identifying the bird. But then it spoke up again. Yes! Raven!! I confirmed it on my way back to the car. I then tried to find it, but either it had left or realized I was looking for it (I was the only person around for some distance). But still! A raven! Or a crow that had learned to sound like a raven...

Comments

[heleninwales]

I can usually identify a raven by the location. Round here they like mountain crags, so if it's out in the wilds and looks big and black, it's a raven. They also have a distinctive "cronk-cronk" call, though I believe that ravens in different places speak different "dialects".

[eve_prime]

This bird wasn't doing anything distinctive - it was saying crow-like things. Of course, any raven that lives here will know a lot more crows than ravens.

[claidheamhmor]

Nice! We have crows around here, always in pairs.

[eve_prime]

In pairs! Interesting. Ours seem to hang out in gangs or as individuals.

[claidheamhmor]

When we drove down to the coast in June, we saw many pairs of crows near the road along the way. First time I've ever seen them on those highways.

[eve_prime]

That's so interesting, because ours are definitely more social than that.