[dainbramaged]

A raven can be up to twice the size of a crow (24"-30"), with a heavy black beak and shaggy feathers around the throat. Their sound making ability is amazing, they can bark, meow, whistle, make a sound like rain hitting leaves, and a gulping noise that is really weird.
We have a small group, or "unkindness" of ravens in our rural area (south Puget Sound) that pass thru every so often.
Not to take anything away from crows, some of them go dining at low tide by picking up a clam and dropping it on rocks from 50 feet up. I've seen seagull to the same thing but don't know which species copied the other one.
Having never seen a grackle, I had to look it up at a great web site called allaboutbirds.org.

[bert]

Generally, we don’t see ravens in the east tennesasee valleys but bird watchers have been reporting them recently.

Generally what I think of as ravens, croakers rather than cawyers are seen in the mountains, the high mountains. I have seen them mostly in flight and never in proximity to the crows who were raiding a blue jay nest yesterday afternoon.

[txhurl]

bttt