(Corvus corax)
Year-round
HABITAT: Great variety of habitats, from tundras to prairies, boreal forests to deserts, mountaintops to seacoasts; prefers rugged terrain with cliffs for nesting; increasingly common in human settlements in the West
DESCRIPTION: Huge songbird, over two feet in length and up to three and a half pounds; glossy black overall with robust bill, wedge-shaped tail, and shaggy throat feathers (“hackles”); often seen soaring
They’re the ultimate songbird—by far the largest—with associated legends and lore galore. The variety of sounds they make may be limitless, with local dialects and much individual variation.
We know them primarily by their deep, resonant croaks, of course, easily distinguished from the caws of crows. The most commonly heard form is a throaty, hoarse croak, about a second long, inflected upward, and easily heard a mile away under calm conditions. Another is a rapid rrock rrock rrock, three or four rasping calls given in response to other ravens that are either in the distance or flying near. Both calls seem to announce that the territory is occupied, as a “keep out” message to other ravens.
But there’s much more these ravens have to say. Female ravens “knock” vocally much like female jays “rattle,” thus revealing their ancestral relationships; sometimes it’s just two knocks in rapid succession, perhaps three, or perhaps a dozen within a second followed by a bill-snap. Young ravens “play” with their sounds, especially when one to four months old: During their babbling monologues, which last up to an hour, their voices break abruptly in pitch and volume, and include many of the raven’s calls, as if the youngster were practicing everything it needed to learn. Ravens “yell” to recruit others to a food carcass, and they “scream,” too. They quark, quork, quirk, they call with the twang of a tuning fork or the resonance of a fine bell, they laugh haw haw haw haw, and they can make almost any sound imaginable under the sun. And yes, in captivity, they can learn to say “nevermore,” though in the wild, mimicry of other species is not known.
Three variations of croaks Variety of other sounds 
