Though occasionally they are portrayed as wise heroes, usually they are evil portents of misfortune.In much the same way the absence of legs makes the snake unappealing, the physical appearance of crows makes them unpopular.
American crows differ in more ways from these familiar songbirds than by their lack of a song.
One of the most marked differences is in their family life.
The American crow is the most widespread and familiar of the four species of crow found in North America.
It ranges from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific, and from the southeastern edge of Alaska to the Gulf of Mexico, absent only from the deserts and treeless shortgrass prairies of the American West.
The young are dependent on the adults for only a few weeks.
They then leave or are kicked out of the parental territory, and the parents go about raising another brood.
On the same winter day that 200 crows may be feeding together in a field of corn stubble, eight others may descend in a suburban backyard.
While seven probe about the lawn for worms and grubs, one perches in a nearby tree and remains vigilant.
Crows are frequently found or taken as nestlings and make very personable, if illegal, pets. The usual reasons given are that they are noisy, or that they kill little birds.