Dear Katie,

Coming from back east myself I sympathize with your confusion
over crows. Not many people in Virginia realize that the American comes
in two sizes or that ravens have begun to show up. Ravens' voices are
pretty distinctive. I haven't been able to distinguish big Crows from
little ones by voice...
Like you, I would appreciate some help on this point.

Harriet Whitehead
WSU, Pullman WA

On Wed, 16 Nov 1994, Katherine Sauter wrote:

>
> Hi Tweeters --
>
> I just got back from rural Pennsylvania, and was startled by the variety
> of crow voices there. Many of the crows sounded like they'd inhaled
> helium. The National Geographic guide puts the range of fish crows just
> up into SE Pennsylvania (where I was) and says they are primarily
> distinguished from their american crow cousins by voice, but warns that
> they also sound a lot like juvenile american crows. Size was never a
> useful differentiator because I never saw two with different voices
> sitting side by side. The habitat was rural farmland/woodland mix. I
> tend to think the high voiced crows were probably juvenile americans,
> mostly because I've never knowingly seen a fish crow. Are there any
> really good ways to differentiate between juvenile american crows and
> fish crows?
>
> Katie Sauter
> sauter at u.washington.edu
>