(not my record): Raven or Large-billed Crow | Sapporo, September 2023 (1 Viewer)

[HouseCrow]

I am often trying hard to find the common things that Common Crows share vs what Large-billed Crows share in Japan.
The clear Common Crows are obvious, the clear Large-billed Crows are a lot more obvious...and then there is the odd Raven...

Not usually in Honshu or farther south, but in Hokkaido....yes there they do winter in (very) small numbers.

What do you make of this probable juvenile* bird. It is easy to dismiss it as Large-billed but on what grounds?

Common Raven (Corvus corax)

Common Raven from Minami Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan on September 29, 2023 at 12:03 AM by Anneliese Mak

www.inaturalist.org

I am inclined to think that the bill feathering is not running up the bill far enough, but is that really something to go by on a juvenile bird?*

*or is it -as Butty rightfully suggests- a moulting adult (or just scruffy).

hope to hear from you
cheers,
Gerben

 

[Butty]

Scraggy, moulting, thus likely an adult?

 

[HouseCrow]

Yes, I considered that too, and it may well be that... a scruffy adult... Will edit it in in post1.

edit 2: this is maybe an academic question, as it seems highly unlikely to encounter a tame-ish Raven on the outskirts of Sapporo when they used be seen only in remote areas of Eastern Hokkaido. (see: https://ornithology.jp/katsudo/Journal_E/ornsci1_1pdfs/os010207.pdf)

cheers,
G