American Crow

I will not bore you with the description of the American crow, as I am sure you have seen them many a time before. What I want to talk about is how torturous it is to differentiate species that are identical except for their call. The American crow is abundant across the country but the fish crow - this is much rarer. In Oklahoma particularly, they are only really seen around the Arkansas River.

The American crow has a harsh caw sound (as well as other coos, rattles, and clicks) that you are probably very familiar with. The fish crow has a more nasal cow sound; not really "cow" but if the a in caw was lowercase instead of uppercase. Juvenile (young adult) American crows also have a nasal call that can be mistaken for fish crows - which is especially problematic because fish crows are also ever so slightly smaller than American crows.

Anyways, I see American crows all the time and wonder if I'm actually seeing their clone self that is exactly the same but different. Does it even matter if I were to see a fish crow and call it an American crow? No... but if I saw an American crow and called it a fish then everyone's up in arms and I am crucified.