Common Crow
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The common crow is a well-known bird with plentiful variations spanning across the many continents of Eseron. While simple in premise, these complex birds have adapted dutifully to survive varied climates and people-borne disasters. Known to be remarkably intelligent, these crows have been well documented to have excellent problem solving skills, utilizing tools for their day to day lives. While not as commonly domesticated as other animals, the crow has been known to take food from people, occasionally returning with a piece of scrap or discarded bobble. Due to such, while the wild crow’s lifespan only ranges from seven to ten years, the rare instance of domesticated crows show advanced ages as old as forty.
Physical Appearance
The common crow has numerous adaptations across the different ecosystems of Eldland. The most commonly seen variation deemed “The Eldland Crow” is a large black bird known for their signature dense black feathers and deafening caw. With broad chests, a wide wingspan and a tail that measures nearly half their length in total; the Eldland Crow is an impressive though understated common bird.
“Fisher Crows” are nearly identical, however sport a thinner beak for fishing minnows and wider unfeathered feet for shallow wading, though both are often seen in the Crownlands. Adapting over years of food shortages, their sleek water resistant feathers and webbed feet evolved Fisher Crows into adapted fresh water hunters unlike their denser bug-eating relatives.
High in the northern edge of Reinar sits the largest of the common crow subspecies known as the “Plumed Crow”, a stouter bird with a thick crest of tawny feathers around its neck. Said plumage, which is occasionally referred to as “the scarf”, keeps the bird warm amidst the constant higher altitude chill. Their call is reportedly more akin to a bark than a caw; with travelers reporting instances of bunkering down for the night in fear of direwolves, only for the daylight to reveal a plumed crow taunting them from the treeline.
The Plumed Crow is a more recent evolution within the past hundred years- while previously only their larger raven counterparts ruled the snowy mountains, with the adaptation of their thick feathers, primarily around their neck and a higher body fat ratio; they’re now a common bird even amongst the snow.
Mental Characteristics
Crows are highly intelligent and social creatures with notably impressive problem solving skills and spatial reasoning for a common bird. They are able to craft and use simple tools such as hooks made from specific types of barbed twigs to pull and push grubs out from within the many nooks and crannies of tree knots and rock crevices. Crows are also known to exhibit the ability of facial recognition in people, going so far as to spread this information with fellow crows of their flock, which is commonly referred to as a “murder”. Crows use these abilities in numerous ways, such as befriending specific people who feed them or holding grudges against those who have harmed their nest in the past.
Crows are also known to be talented tricksters; when catching food, a crow will look around to see if any other creature is watching them. If so, they may pretend to hide the food in the nearby ground, while actually hiding it within their wing. Once the crow notices their observer leaving, they will then fly to a specific hidden stash to hoard away their goodies. Some tavern keepers even report specific murders lingering around their trash bins come closing time, only to scavenge through the recently dumped leftovers and return again the next night.
Lifespan and Development
The common crow in the wild is known to live seven to ten years and while rarely domesticated, in captivity they’re able to mature into their forties. Crows typically are hatched in clutches of three to nine eggs and incubate within sixteen to twenty days. Freshly hatched, crows are small, clumsy and blind, with only a sparse tuft of grayish down feathers covering their bodies. Murders tend to stay together yearly, forming family units which help each other over the next twenty to forty days to feed the chicks and teach them sufficient survival behaviours. Now developed, these crows will spend the next two years living among their flock, assisting in raising the next generations of chicks until they reach full maturity. After which, at about two to four years old, the crow will either mate with one of their existing flock or leave to find another group, typically having one or two broods within their lifetime.
Territory and Grouping
Crows are social birds that tend to stay in large family units, commonly known as “murders”. These flocks fluctuate in size over the seasons, growing tighter knit during the mating seasons and expanding into the thousands during the winter roost. Crows are also socially monogamous, and are typically seen with a life partner who helps them build the nest and raise the chicks. These nests are occasionally helped by younger birds of the flock who have not reached maturity, and range vastly in size between fifteen and forty-eight centimeters in length, with a deeper section in the center.
Crows can be found practically everywhere across Eldland, excluding extremely warm or icy regions. They prefer evergreens to build their nests in, but if none can be found any tree with thick winding trunks will do. Built within the windings of roots or across parallel branches they’re one of the easiest nests to stumble into, often resulting in a grudge-holding crow which might follow the intruder around, tossing sticks and stones on their head.
Abilities
Crows are gifted fliers with wide wingspans capable of gliding easily along gusts of wind. Their high intelligence also gives them an edge against predators; with the ability to warn fellow crows about hunters and a knack for recognizing faces.Asides from that, the common crow has both sharp talons and a sturdy beak. While they aren’t the best at self defense, they're capable of doing considerable damage to an unassuming victim.
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