Photo by Shauneen Hutchinson
The Corvidae family has 100 species and includes
ravens, crows, and rooks. They are gregarious, bold,
inquisitive, aggressive, and strong fliers. The most recognized
corvid in the New World is the American crow (Corvus
brachyrhynchos). The evolution of the ten North American
crow species occurred more than a million years ago. The
fish crow (Corvus ossifragus) is the dominant crow along the
East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, but it has intermingled
so much with the American crow that some consider it a
subspecies of the American crow.
Corvids are not your average bird. They use insight to
solve challenges and can imagine an outcome. In urban areas,
crows will drop thick-shelled nuts on roads and let cars crack
them open. They also create tools and use them. By shaping
twigs and leaf stems, they extract spiders and larvae f