I admit to a love of crows. I've been spending
summers in Tokyo for nearly thirty years. The quintessential sound of
Tokyo is the crow. I missed the sound of crows when I returned to San
Francisco for most of those thirty years.
Somehow, my unknown prayer for crows to come to San Francisco was answered about ten years ago. They have come and they are thriving. There are half a dozen that live and nest close to me. I hear them regularly.
The video image on the left is one of my neighborhood crows.
I learned fairly rapidly when I came to love crows, because of their high intelligence, their highly developed sociability and their stark-simple-stylish black appearance, that crows and ravens are not the same species. Ravens are about a third larger, have bulkier beeks and rounder tails (Corvus corax). Crows are Corvus brachyrhynchos. Flying, the Raven can soar and do a barrel role, the crow can't.
Ravens arrived in the San Francisco only a few years ago and I see them often now. The actual count went from 14 ravens in San Francisco in 1983 to 250 in 2000, about when I started seeing them regularly.
It is rare for two birds, so close in size to thrive together....but these two relatives, crows and ravens, definitely do. Probably because they worked out a treaty between them that was approved by their legislative institutions.
My best source on Bay Area corvids has been Joe Eaton who writes in Bay Nature.