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How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

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Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#21

Post by kzrdude »

joshklein wrote: post #17

Many will have heard the collective noun for crows via the Simpsons episode reference or otherwise (a “murder of crows”), but ravens get one of my absolute favorites: an “unkindness of ravens”.

What's the real story of these supposedly normative collective nouns? They don't seem to stem from natural development of the english language, rather seem to have been poetically constructed at some point — is that true?

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#22

Post by kyleblarson »

andrewl wrote: post #20

I think the entire corvid family is fascinating. They are extremely intelligent. Some of them not only use tools but actually make tools: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvidae#Intelligence

In Seattle a girl gets gifts from the crows she feeds: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31604026

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#23

Post by erikig »

joshklein wrote: post #17

Many will have heard the collective noun for crows via the Simpsons episode reference or otherwise (a “murder of crows”), but ravens get one of my absolute favorites: an “unkindness of ravens”.

I’ve also heard of a “conspiracy of ravens” used too

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#26

Post by protomyth »

erikig wrote: post #23
joshklein wrote: post #17

Many will have heard the collective noun for crows via the Simpsons episode reference or otherwise (a “murder of crows”), but ravens get one of my absolute favorites: an “unkindness of ravens”.

I’ve also heard of a “conspiracy of ravens” used too

I thought "conspiracy" was used for owls.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#28

Post by mathgaron »

reaperducer wrote: post #19

Crazy to see this posted today. Last night my wife and I were on a reservation in Arizona and watching the birds. She googled this very topic. Then when I looked at HN today, here it is! I showed it to her and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Is Facebook listening to me?” Then I had to explain that HN is human-powered and the chances of Big G and Facebook and HN sharing data is pretty close to zero.

Great example of Baader–Meinhof effect. When you recently hear something and you remark it everywhere. I can assure you that I also read this post and did not talk about crows/raven recently!

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#29

Post by ajross »

Causality1 wrote: post #5

Taxonomically, ravens and crows are not distinct clades. That is to say, not all the species we label "crows" are more closely related to each other than they are to all of the species we label "ravens," and vice versa.

Yeah. The article seems to be a pretty dry list of traits that distinguish the common raven and american crow, which are specific species, so it makes sense in isolaiton. But it seems to be embracing a frame (echoed in a lot of comments here) that "crows and ravens look similar but are very different birds", which is basically wrong.

Re: How to tell a raven from a crow (2012)

#30

Post by onetimemanytime »

reaperducer wrote: post #19

Crazy to see this posted today. Last night my wife and I were on a reservation in Arizona and watching the birds. She googled this very topic. Then when I looked at HN today, here it is! I showed it to her and the first thing out of her mouth was, “Is Facebook listening to me?” Then I had to explain that HN is human-powered and the chances of Big G and Facebook and HN sharing data is pretty close to zero.

>>Crazy to see this posted today.

Game of Thrones ;) ? We need to tell them apart for we might get mixed messages.

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