OP here again. I was telling my family about my whole raven sighting and my 8th grader said, they're really big black birds? We see them at Deal all the time. They sit on the fences and trees around the school and after all the recesses they are on the field picking up all the snacks. They line up on the fences waiting for the last recess to end.

We talked about various sizes and 8th grader described them as bigger than crows. However, 8th grader is also a very unreliable narrator.

Anonymous wrote:Crows (pigeon-sized) are much smaller than ravens (hawk-sized). Ravens are all over around here. Grackles easier to confuse with crows than ravens, although I don't know how common they are here.

I see grackles fairly often in DC. They are usually smaller than either crows or ravens.

I second the point that crows and ravens are really smart (corvids in general are among the most intelligent birds). They make and use tools, and are generally excellent problem solvers. I think it's still the case that a type of magpie is the only non-mammal who has demonstrated the ability to recognize itself in a mirror. If anyone is interested, I recommend the book The Genius of Birds.

I love crows and ravens! I live a place with both. Ravens have a distinctive call, with thicker bills.

Anonymous wrote:They are both incredibly smart birds.

They can reason and problem-solve at the level of a 5-year-old child. Some of them can speak as well as human toddlers!

Ok op here. Am a little disturbed anyone would mistake a crow, raven or grackle for a vulture. Crows, Ravens and grackles are fairly similar and are in the same family. Vultures are......vultures. There is nothing that resembles vultures except another kind of vulture.

It’s a turkey vulture.

They are both incredibly smart birds.