Scientific Name: Corvus corax
Residency: Year-round throughout Arizona.
Diet: Omnivorous: eats insects, shellfish, seeds, fruit, small animals (rodents), bird eggs and nestlings, carrion and food scraps. Ravens are scavengers, able to exploit multiple food sources. Increasing populations of this bird species can have a significant negative impact on certain prey species, such as the Desert Tortoise and Least Tern.
Predators:  Peregrine Falcon, Golden Eagle, and Coyote.
Nesting: Both the male and female participate in building the platform-type nest, mostly on cliffs, but also large trees and buildings. Made of sticks, twigs and vine; a depression within the nest is lined with moss, hair and/or grass. They breed once per year, laying 3-8 eggs (pale green with brown markings). This species tends to use the same nest site for many years.

Nesting Records: Coon Bluff.
Notes: It is interesting to note that this species follows wolf packs to scavenge carrion. The Common Raven is also known to scavenge alongside crows and gulls. The Common Raven is highly intelligent and adaptable, able to survive in extreme ranges of climate from Artic to desert. It is therefore one of the most widespread bird species in the world. From 1968-1993, raven populations increased dramatically within the Sonoran Desert, but since 1993 have leveled off.  This population increase is a major concern for some biologists who maintain that ravens sometimes predate animals within the Sonoran Desert who are considered threatened or of "special concern" status, such as the Desert Tortoise or the Chuckwalla lizard. These species suffer from dwindling population numbers from many factors usually associated with habitat loss, and raven predation may be an added threat to species already vulnerable. It?s interesting to note, however, that ravens are often closely associated with human activities, and have even been indicators in some studies of the level to which humans have affected an area This close relationship with human activities seems to indicate that the rise in raven populations and the inverse decline of other native species may be more directly due to the human population explosion that has occurred in the Sonoran Desert within the last few decades.
Photo: Taken at Coon Bluff on April 3, 2007. For more photos, click on camera icon.