Raven

It's not often I get the chance to photograph a Raven, it's not that often I even see one but I am pretty sure that I will be getting many more photos to post here in the coming days.  I would hazard a guess that I have, and a few others too, overlooked them, probably more often than I would care to admit or perhaps  even known about. I now realise that there is a bit of size almost overlap in both the Raven and Carrion Crow and I would guess that I have confused them with Carrion Crows quite often.  You get very big crows and some Ravens are almost as small as a Carrion Crow. However, once you see one perched and reasonably close up, they are such a massive bird with a huge beak and it would be hard to make a mistake. Ravens are very widespread worldwide  in the Northern Hemisphere and have even been found 20.000 feet up the Himalayas.  They are the largest Passerine Bird and have the largest beak with the largest bird brain……. so many records!  They are said to be the most intelligent of birds as well, they also have the ability to solve problems. At this site they have quickly worked out that they can forage for hens eggs. I am not sure if it is one or two birds but I would suspect that I have seen two, particularly at this time of the year.

Raven

Side on, you can get a real impression of the size of the enormous beak , said by some to be the largest beak of all passerine birds but that is obviously not correct, what about Hornbills and Toucans, but never the less, quite impressive.

Now compare the Carrion Crow photos below and pay particular attention to the beak…… no comparison.

Carrion Crow

While I am on the subject of Carrion Crow and Raven, it really galls me that people take the opportunity, and have the legal right to shoot Carrion Crows, I wonder, what damage they really do?  I guess they take the odd Pheasant egg and chick but it  It seems that anything that we don't like we simple kill…… of course we call it cull which somehow makes it seem OK.  I wonder when the crow falls from it's perch it thinks  "Oh it's OK I'm being culled not killed"!

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Carrion Crow