I heard a raven croaking on campus the other morning, and a few moments after, a crow cawing. At time the birds can sound similar, but when a raven croaks, there's no mistaking it. If you want to try to compare some the sound of the two birds, go to the recordings on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology "All About Birds" pages. The call of the raven is definitely deeper compared to the call of the crow. Be sure to listen to the first crow audio file ("Caws and comb call") until its end — one of the crows "chuckles" in the last second.

(In the book The American Crow and Common Raven, Lawrence Kilham talks about "uncrowlike vocalizations" he's heard, including crow calls that sound like mammal cries. I do know one day I witnessed a crow walk back and forth beneath my birdfeeder, mewling like a cat.)

The Cornell Lab says common ravens (Corvus corax) are "massive." They weigh 2.6 pounds, are 2 feet long from beak tip to tail end, and have wingspans of 53 inches. In comparison, American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) weigh just 1 pound, are 16 - 18 inches long, and have wingspans of just 39 inches.

That means a crow is around about 75 percent the size of a raven, and about 40 percent in weight. I tried to show the relative size difference between the birds in the photos below:

People revere ravens but aren't as enthusiastic about crows. I like both. I especially liked a young crow that showed up in the meadow a couple summers ago. It relentlessly tailed its parents, begging for food. The young crow had a pink mouth — all juveniles do — and really put up a racket. I used to put out pieces of white bread for him, which he stuffed into his bill. Maybe it was kind of like eating a Krispy Creme donut.