American Crow

The American crow is a large, all-black songbird found across most of North America, one of the continent's most familiar and intelligent birds, known for its loud, harsh caw and its adaptability to nearly any habitat, from wilderness to city centers. It is an omnivorous generalist, eating everything from insects, seeds and carrion to garbage and the eggs of other birds, and it often forages and roosts in large, noisy flocks that can number in the thousands during winter. American crows are highly social and cooperative, with young from earlier broods sometimes staying to help their parents raise later chicks, and the species has demonstrated problem-solving abilities, tool use and long memory for individual human faces in scientific studies. Populations were hit hard in some areas by West Nile virus after it arrived in North America in the late 1990s, but the species remains common and widespread overall.