American Crow
Corvus brachyrhynchos · Crows, Jays, and Magpies
Banding codeAMCR
Keys to identifying it
1Size & shape
About 17.5 in long.
2Color pattern
- All black, smaller than a raven
- Square or fan-shaped tail in flight
- Slimmer bill, no shaggy throat
3Habitat & season
Towns, parks, farm fields, river corridors
In northern Utah: year-round.
Seen most often in January, February, March and November.
Share of the region’s research-grade iNaturalist bird observations each month, scaled to this bird’s peak. Highlighted bars are its peak months.
4Voice
The classic loud, cawing call.
“caw! caw! caw!”
iNat 407135551 by bluefeathers · Juneau, AK, USA · CC BY
Know it
- Can recognize individual human faces and remember people who threatened it.
- Families stay together, and young from earlier years help raise new nestlings.
- Gathers in winter roosts that can hold thousands of birds.
- Its tail looks squared off in flight, unlike a raven's wedge.
Often confused with
Common Raven
European Starling
Red-winged BlackbirdFrom iNaturalist identification data for northern Utah.
From Wikipedia
The American crow is a large passerine bird species of the family Corvidae. It is a common bird found throughout much of North America, only absent from the tundra biome. The American crow is the New World counterpart to the carrion crow and the hooded crow of Eurasia, occupying similar ecological niches.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0