To all the bird enthusiasts out there, if we place crow vs grackle side by side, will you be able to tell the difference? They both have black plumage, and are almost of the same size. If you want to distinguish them based on their diet, then let me tell you, even their food preferences are almost similar. They both are omnivores and would like fruits and little invertebrates.
So how can you tell crows and grackles apart? Well for one thing, their vocalizations are quite different. If you pay attention to their eyes, beaks and tails, you would notice distinct differences there too. The truth is in the details. Let’s think no further and end this dilemma once and for all.
Contents
Crows At-A-Glance
Source: @zero.state.reflex
Around 6 types of crows have found a loving home in the United States, of which the American crows are the most commonly sighted. Belonging to the Corvidae family, these birds are quite stocky with an average body length of 17 to 21 inches, and a glossy black plumage.
However, some crows like the American crow or the white-necked crow have bluish-purple hues to their feathers if the light has touched them at the correct angle.
Some crow species have become vulnerable or extinct in the recent decades in the United States. The white-necked crows are vulnerable, while the Hawaiian crows are not seen in the wild anymore.
The crows have an omnivorous appetite, and would go for fruits and small vertebrates and invertebrates like fish and mice all the time. White-necked crows are mostly found in the forests and mountains, whereas American crows can be sighted almost everywhere.
Grackles At-A-Glance
Source: @intobirds
Belonging to the family Icteridae, grackles are passerine birds that could be commonly sighted in the United States. These birds have 4 genera, namely Quiscalus, Hypopyrrhus, Lampropsar, and Macroagelaius, of which Quiscalus are common in North America.
These birds mostly have a black plumage, but some of their species, like the common grackles, have almost iridescent and colorful bodies.
The four types of grackles that can be easily spotted in the United States are the common, boat-tailed, great-tailed, and the greater Antillean grackles.These birds could be between 11 to 18 inches in length, the great-tailed grackles being the longest in size. They are well adapted to living in marshy conditions and they are mainly omnivores.
Both crows and grackles have a black plumage. They are dark from their crown to the tip of their tail. They both look iridescent when light shines on their body.
As far as their dietary preferences are concerned, they both are omnivores. Crows like to eat fruits such as chokecherries, grapes, dogwood fruits, watermelons, and pecans. They also gorge on wheat, oats and corn. Ground-dwelling insects like beetles and corn borers are some of their favorite foods. They also go for live or dead frogs, toads and lizards.
Grackles have a similar diet. They would happily settle for acorns, berries and seeds. They would also forage and scavenge on millipedes, caterpillars, grasshoppers, earthworms, minnows, frogs, and even young of other birds.
Additionally, both the birds are more or less of the same size and live for about the same number of years. So how do you tell them apart? Let’s explore further.
Differences In Physique
Crows and grackles are like cousins, similar yet different. From a distance they are indistinguishable, but are they actually? Here is a list of some physical aspects where the crows and grackles are different.
Source: @toki336, @robertozapla
Size and Weight
Crows are large birds and could fall anywhere between 40 and 55 cm in length. Even the Little Crows measure between 35 and 45 cm. On the other hand, grackles are 28 to 34 cm long, a feature that makes grackles much smaller than crows.
Crows weigh around 300 to 600 gm with a wingspan of 1 meter. Grackles have a wingspan of 36 to 46 cm, and are 74 to 142 grams in weight. It should be quite clear by looking at these features that grackles are significantly smaller than crows. There are large grackles like the great-tailed grackles, but they are still smaller than most crows.
Color and plumage
Crows are basically black in color, but in certain illumination angles, males may look slightly iridescent giving off bluish-black hues. The fish crow, for example, produces a blue-green sheen as it flies past you in broad daylight. The white-necked crow has got white streaks along its neck plumage.
Grackles, on the contrary, have definite iridescent touch to their plumage, producing an elusive mixture of green, blue and purple. Also the plumage is quite shiny. Great Antillean grackles, however, are much more black to look at.
Source: @photo.block.one, @sandrafrimpongg
Beak and Eyes
Crows have black beaks, with a slight curve toward the end. The lower beak is also upturned, thus when the upturn and the downturn meet, they make a really efficient gripping mechanism. This grip is sharp and strong and can easily cut through the prey’s body. Grackles on the other hand have a beak the shape of a cone, slightly tapered as one moves gradually toward the end.
Eyes of crows are usually dark brown, but from a distance they look powerfully black. Their dark brown eyes give them an extremely sharp vision even in dim lit conditions. In contrast, grackles may have different colored eyes, ranging from golden to gray, even white.
Source: @zero.state.reflex, @aspiciens.avium
Tail shape
Crows’ tails are fan-shaped, and are quite long ranging between 13 and 19 cm. Grackles have a keel-shaped tail, and there is a distinct V-shape at the bottom. Grackles’ tails are longer than those of the crow, measuring to almost half of the length of their own body.
Sexual Dimorphism
Crow males are slightly larger than the females, in length, wingspan and also weight. From a distance, however, telling a male and female crow apart is very difficult.
Grackles, on the contrary, are quite sexually dimorphic. The females are smaller and less iridescent and less glossy in appearance. At times, females have a brown plumage, like in the case of the great-tailed grackle.
Life Span
Crows and grackles both have long lives amounting to an impressive couple of decades. Average lifespan of crows is between 13 and 20 years, and in the case of grackles, it is from 17 and 22 years.
However, it must be noted that these are the lifespans of crows and grackles that thrive in the wild. The ones that live in the urban areas may have shorter lifespans due to use of insecticides and loss of natural habitats.
Differences In Behavior
Crows and grackles behave quite differently from one another. Did you know–Crows are quieter than grackles, despite their loud and harsh “Caws”? Let’s discover some more interesting facts about these two birds.
Source: @bird.whisperer
Feeding habits and Diet
Crows, though large and aggressive looking, are quiet creatures and like to be left alone. They are often seen perched solitary and fly about in small flocks too. They eat about everything, and have even nurtured a sense of humor, at least from the perspective of humans. They often throw nuts with hard-shells that they could not crack on busy streets waiting for cars to go over them and slit the nut open so that they can savor the meaty parts inside.
Crows would go for vegetables and fruits also, and of course their favorite edibles–the tiny vertebrates and invertebrates like the spiders and fish. Crows also scavenge on dead animals.
Grackles, as we have read earlier, are more sociable in nature, and like to forage and migrate in large flocks. However, unlike crows, they could be quite aggressive especially when it comes to food.
For them, sharing is not caring– grackles do not like sharing food apparently. They would scratch, nibble, screech and claw any competitors trying to share their meal, even if the other bird is just another grackle. They are omnivores and like to go for berries and fruits, and mostly spiders, caterpillars, earthworms, lizards, crayfish, and frogs.
Source: @bob_inmusiccity
Reproduction and Nesting
Crow: Crows are primarily monogamous in nature and will stay loyal to one mating partner for many breeding seasons. Groups of 15 or more pairs stay together, after having produced little ones together, for many years. It has also been observed that nestlings born in one breeding season, once they have grown up, help the family to take care of newborns in the consecutive seasons.
Different species of crows breed at different times of year, once in March and August, and the other time could be between October and December. Their courtship rituals are amazing to witness. The courtship ritual takes place on the ground, and the males expand their body by appearing more fluffy. They make affectionate cooing noises to attract the female, and repeatedly bow its head in front of the female.
Crows build their nests either on the ground covered in vegetation, or a little way up a tree. Females lay 3 to 7 eggs at a time and the eggs are a mixture of blue and green colors. The fledglings are fed by both the parents for a long time, and like humans, they tend to stay with their parents even after they have matured enough to start a family of their own.
Grackle: Mating season of grackles starts in March and continues up to July. They usually lay eggs once every year, but certain species could raise two broods in a year. Grackles are generally monogamous in nature, but characteristics of polygamy may be visible in certain species of grackles.
The V-shape of the keel of a boat seems to be playing a big part as far as a grackle’s life is concerned– their tails have a V-shape, and not only that, they even surround a female grackle, during mating, in a V-shape. It has been found that folding the tail into a V-shape helps more in the mating process than in flights.
After a successful mating session, the pair will build their nest near a water source, in a boggy area. In a brood, there are 5 to 6 eggs. The eggs are bluer than crow’s eggs, and have dark spots on them.
Grackle families, however, are not as close-knit as crow families. The children leave the nest after 12 to 15 days. Males leave the nest and their female counterparts even before the chicks have hatched.
IQ
Crow: Crows are popularly known as intelligent birds and can easily adapt to environments trodden and shaped by humans. They interact with humans and other animals fearlessly. Not only that, a fun fact about crows is that they have the same brain-size–to-body ratio as is present in human beings, the reason why they are so intelligent.
Humans have a region called neocortex at the front of their heads, and researches have shown that crows seem to have a structure similar in function to a neocortex. Their intelligence quotient can rival a chimpanzee’s IQ, and they have been observed to possess the ability to play games, hold wakes when their companion crows die, and build tools.
Crows are thought to have a higher consciousness that most other birds– examples are evident in their family values. They stay with their parents for a long time, and even take care of younger siblings. If a mating season remains unsuccessful, young adult crows return to their parents.
Grackle: Grackles are quite intelligent birds too. They have been found to have solved the Aesop’s fable test– great-tailed grackles have been observed to successfully drop pebbles into a container of water to raise the water level so that they can drink from it.
Certainly, they have given a shoulder-to-shoulder competition to the fairy-tale crow there! Grackles have even been found to have bored the grilles of cars to eat the insects hiding inside.
Vocalizations
Crows give out a sound that every urban or townsman has heard– the very distinctive and loud “Caw”. Screeches and rattles of different tones and pitches are also audible near their habitats.
Grackles are no singers either, but their calls are subtler than those of crows. “Click click click” noises and whistles are their communication style.
Source: @korea_wildbirds, @domiziano88
Flight Pattern and Flock Style
You will often spot a crow sitting singularly on the branch of a tree, cawing away. Crows even fly in small groups of 2 to 8 birds in each group. In the fall and winter, they fly about at night for roosting purposes.
Crows often fly in straight lines, and flap their wings less frequently, and hover about more. Their up and down movement during flight is also less frequent. As they are a predatory bird, gliding and swooping, without flapping their wings, is a part of their evolutionary habit.
Grackles are much more sociable than crows. They like foraging and migrating in large flocks. Often these flocks consist of 10 to 30 pairs of birds. Grackles fly in a straight line also and their wingbeats are quite stiff. When they fly, their long tails appear shorter. This is because during flights, they fold their long tails into V-shape.
Differences in Habitat and Distribution
Grackles and crows can be readily spotted almost anywhere in North America. They are available in forests as well as parks, wetlands and also in backyards. Let’s find out more about their migratory behavior and where they prefer to live.
Typical habitats
Crows are highly adaptable to thrive in any kind of conditions, be it urban or rural, farmland or in the woods. They are visible almost everywhere. They have their own preference though– partially open or fully open lands are their favorite. Riparian forests, tidal flats, savannas and orchards are also frequented by these birds.
Source: @shannonbirder
Grackles, on the other hand, like wetlands and open woodlands more. However, agricultural lands, farmlands, woods, backyards, parks, and orchards are also chosen habitats of these birds. They are also found in cemeteries, hedgerows and plantations of pine trees.
Geographic distribution
In North America, crows are found everywhere. They are abundant especially in the continental parts of the United States and in the southern parts of Canada. Grackles are found in the north-east, north-west, and the central segments of the United States.
Migration
Crows are often termed as partially migratory, which means that some species migrate while others remain as residents, and do not leave their habitat even during harsh winters. They do not only migrate to keep themselves warm but also for breeding reasons. Crows that live in the northern parts of Canada and US, will migrate to the south as it gets extremely cold in winters.
Grackles are found almost everywhere in the United States, especially the east of the Rocky Mountains, and between Nova Scotia and Alberta in Canada. Unlike the crows, grackles are fully migratory birds and migrate to the south during winters to keep themselves warm and to breed. Grackles that are residents of the south, remain in the south in winters.
Source: @junehunterimages
Status and Management
American crows are the most commonly sighted crows in the United States and their conservation status is “Least Concern” with their population standing at a whopping 31 million! They are not facing any kind of extinction threat at present. In Quebec, their hunting is banned during the nesting season.
Mariana crows, on the contrary, are one critically endangered species with the main reason behind such low populations being the brown tree snake that preys on the bird. The birds used to be residents of the Rota Island of the US, but they have been relocated.
Grackles on the other hand, are Least Concern species mostly. However, the population of common grackles has been dwindling the past decades, and has been labeled as ‘Near Threatened’. .
Females
In a crow family, all members look almost similar. Juveniles and females look the same as the male figure in the family, that is, black plumage all throughout. So how can you tell them apart? By looking closely at their size difference–females are slightly smaller. If you can get hold of them and weigh them, you will find that females weigh a little less.
In the case of grackles, however, we can see some noticeable differences. Males are larger than the females– a feature you can use to differentiate between the two. Additionally, females are less colorful and less iridescent than the males, and have shorter tails. Females are usually brown or subtle colored, and their tails do not become V-shaped when they fly.
Juveniles
Juvenile crows look slightly less darker than their mom and dad. They look darker-grayish than jet black as their parents do. Their beaks are shorter and have white edges. Their wings look disheveled– altogether they have a gruff appearance.
Young grackles are not iridescent like their fathers, and look gray and untidy. Their tails look longer because their bodies are smaller. They also have dark brown or complete black eyes.
Table Summarizing Differences
This article has talked about the similarities and differences between crows and grackles. Here is a table to summarize the differences so that you can distinguish between the birds in a snap.
| Characteristics | Crows | Grackles |
| Size and Weight | 40 to 55 cm long; 300 to 600 gm in weight | 28 to 34 cm long; 74 to 142 gm in weight |
| Color and Plumage | Iridescent black all over | Iridescent blue, green and purple |
| Beak and Eyes | Hook shaped beak; dark brown eyes | Cone shaped beak; golden, gray or white eyes |
| Tail Shape | Fan-shaped | Keel-shaped |
| Feeding Habits | Solitary foragers | Aggressive foragers |
| Reproduction and Nesting | Courtship rituals include bowing and cooing; family members stay with each other for several seasons | Courtship rituals include folding the tail into a V-shape; males and juveniles leave the nest very quickly; |
| Vocalization | ‘Caw’ sounds | ‘Click Click Click’ and whistles |
| Migration | Partially migratory | Fully migratory |
| Status and Management | Mariana crows are critically endangered | Common grackles are near threatened |
FAQ
Crows and grackles are two of the most commonly sighted birds in North America. They even look quite similar– so much in fact that it is a bit difficult to tell them apart. Here is a list of FAQs that will help you to distinguish them better.
Q: How to tell crow vs grackle apart?
Ans: Try to pay attention to their plumage color. Crows are completely black, whereas grackles have purple-blue hues all over their body. Look at their eyes and tails. Also, listen to their vocalizations.
Q: Are both crows and grackles migratory?
Ans: Crows are partially migratory, whereas grackles are fully migratory.
Thoughts
Crow vs grackle– two most commonly sighted and similar looking birds. They both possess black plumage, are almost of the same size and have the same dietary habits. So how do we tell them apart? The best way to differentiate between them is to observe their physical features and appreciate their behavioral patterns.
Most crows are fully black alright, but are grackles truly all black? Turns out the answer is no. Their plumage is an iridescent bluish-purple. Grackle females look quite different though with brown plumage. Crows have a more hook-shaped beak, whereas grackles have a cone-shaped one. Crows like to hang around singularly, whereas grackles are always in flocks.
It is the subtle nuances in nature that makes all the difference. From a distance, these two birds are the same, but upon close inspection, they are not. It is their uniqueness that makes them so beautiful. We hope this article has clarified all dilemmas and next time you see a blackbird, you will be sure if you have spotted a crow or a grackle.
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