Everyday in NH
American Crow
Corvus brachyrhynchos · Crows and Jays (Corvidae)
- Status
- Year-round resident statewide; forms large winter roosts, some in city centres
- Length
- 15.8–20.9 in
- Regions
- Coast · Merrimack · Lakes · The Whites · Conn. River
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What you notice first
The mob — three or more crows harrying a hawk or an owl across the sky, screaming, the surest way to find a roosting Great Horned Owl in daylight.
Voice
The familiar "caw," in every cadence; also rattles, clicks, and a startlingly soft, almost gentle warble used among family members.
Where & when
Everywhere with open ground and trees — farms, towns, dumps, beaches, the edge of the alpine zone. All year. Winter evenings, watch the strung-out lines of crows all heading one direction toward a communal roost.
Easy to write off, hard to actually know. American Crows live in family groups where grown young stay for years and help raise their siblings; they hold funerals of a sort, gathering and calling around a dead crow; they recognise individual human faces and hold the grudge for years, passing the alarm to birds that never saw the offence.
Against the larger Common Raven — regular now in the North Country and the mountains, and spreading south — a crow has a fan-shaped tail, steady rowing wingbeats, and that flat “caw.” A raven has a wedge tail, a heavier bill, it soars and tumbles, and it croaks.
Winter roosts can hold thousands. Concord and other cities have hosted them right downtown, to mixed civic feeling.