I honestly am a true corvid fan! Take the eurasian magpies for example: what people call ‘noisy, messy and destructive’ I call ‘social, adaptive and beautiful’. They (and other corvids) will play with twigs and stuff in the air, and that’s a cute thing about them.
Eursian jays are also one of my favorite corvids, beautiful and intelligent.
How about you guys? If you are a corvid fan, what is your favourite species and why? I’m curious to read your answers.
I guess my favorite is the American Crow. It is a loud bird. Sometimes they can act a little goofy. Lol!
I love corvids! They’re smart and cute and lovable!
Here in Northeast Ohio we have American crows, fish crows (uncommon), blue jays and recently, a few nesting common ravens. I pay attention to the crows and jays when I am out hiking/birding because they can often locate owls. But, they are usually just fun to watch and listen to.
That’s a nother reason I like the American Crow is because they have helped me locate birds of prey.
Also Blue Jays are cool too.
I am fascinated by ravens, partly because of their role in literature and folklore, and partly because they are so splendid. Although I seldom see them, it’s always a thrill. I’ve never gotten a good photo of one.
I admire Bluejays for their great beauty and brash natures.
But I am most fond of American Crows. There is a family of four who have been hanging out in my yard for several years. (Only during the day- at night they must be roosting with all of the other crows in the nearby woods.) I think of them fondly as “my crows” and was worried for a while when only three showed up (but they are all back now.)
Usually one arrives first, then summons the others. (We also have Fish Crows in the area, which look virtually identical, but you can distinguish them by their calls.)
Mine is definitely the steller’s jay. They’re adorable and aren’t as loud and mean as other corvids. Somebody in our neighborhood gives them peanuts and they hide them in our yard.
Looks like there are many crow fans here! I suggest this online course:
https://academy.allaboutbirds.org/product/anything-but-common-the-hidden-life-of-the-american-crow/
yes, I did that one, it was fun!
alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus)
they are very friendly and come very close to hikers and will take food from hands.
Also very funny, at the end of summer, the younglings are the size of the parents and fully capable of flight but follow parents around and demand to be fed, sometimes yelling by a piece of cheese, until a parent picks it up and stuff it into their bill.
That’s hilarious! 
My favorite bird is a corvid. The Yellow-billed Magpie is found only in the Central Valley and a few valleys on the Central California Coast. It often travels in big flocks acting like an ecological equivalent of monkeys in the tropics.
I just checked your observations to see what they are (because I’d rather see photos posted on iNat, than elsewhere on the web.)
Very handsome birds… care to post a favorite photo or two?
In what way is their behavior monkey-like? … not that I know anything about the behavior of monkeys.
I have a fondness for Hooded Crows (C. cornix). When I lived in Rostock, Germany, there were two crows who would drop nuts on the ground in front of cars, letting the drivers unintentionally open them with their tires. I got in the habit, while walking to work, of stomping some of these that the cars had missed open for them. They would scream bloody murder at me until I moved away from the nuts.
Here’s my favorite shot of one. My friend Linda was on the wrong side of the car so she passed me her nice camera to take the shot.
I say they kind of fill the same niche as monkeys because they move as a unit the way a troop of monkeys does. They investigate everything as they pass through an area. They constantly call and keep in contact with each other as they move.
Common Raven - I like the odd sounds they make.
I’m a big fan of Canada Jays, they have such a great personality and often come check you out and chatter at you when you’re in the middle of nowhere in the boreal forest.
I’m very curious if Siberian Jays have a similar personality, since it seems like they occupy the same niche in Eurasia but are a bit more colourful:
In their scientific name (Perisoreus infaustus), “infaustus” apparently means “unlucky” since they were considered a bad omen… I’m glad that Canada Jays traditionally have the opposite connotation in North America haha.
I love canada jays!
When I lived in Eugene, Oregon, my neighbor and I had between us about 6 beehives in our yards. Every morning, the bees would haul out their dead and drop them on the ground below the entrance. There was a pair of jays—a Steller’s jay and a California scrub jay—that would go around eating the dead honeybees, hive by hive. One would watch guard, sitting on top of a hive while the other ate. Then they would fly to the next one and switch roles. They did this daily for an entire season, maybe spring/summer 2022.
Ravens by a long shot. When I lived in northern BC I would frequently have opportunities to watch them. They give the impression of being smarter than people.
Once I saw a pair of ravens steal a dog’s food. The dog was on a run a leash in it’s yard. One of the ravens stood just outside the dogs range and made a huge squawking scene. While this distracted the dog the other would silently swoop in and steal the food.
I highly recommend Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinreich for anyone who loves corvids.
