Raven takes flight from top of telephone pole

A majestic-looking raven overlooks my neighborhood with a watchful eye, just before taking flight. From up there on top of a 45-foot telephone pole, he can see a wide swath of his surroundings.

When I first saw this bird, I thought I was looking at a crow. But as a sharp-eyed friend of mine said, “It may be a raven.” What do you think? (You have a 50-50 chance of being right. :)

Crows and ravens are both highly intelligent birds, but they differ in their behavior, habitat, and physical characteristics.

A raven is usually quite a bit larger than a crow. It’s longer (including its longer bill), weighs more, and has a greater wingspan.
Ravens have pointed wings and wedge-shaped tails but crows have blunt and splayed wings and fan-shaped tails.

Crows generally make a ‘Kaw’ sound in discrete units. It is high pitched and nasal; crows are louder and have a harsher sound. A raven has deeper and less piercing sound.

The raven is revered as a god by the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest in North America and in northeast Asia. Several totem poles erected by native Americans depict ravens and the stories they feature in. In the Old Testament of the Bible there are several references to common ravens. In the British Isles, ravens were symbolic to the Celts and figure prominently into Irish mythology.

This particular one – high atop the telephone pole - seemed to simply be doing his ‘Neighborhood Watch’ duty before moving on to new adventures.