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Little Ravens are medium-sized Australian members of the Corvus family (corvids). Their plumage is glossy-black on the back, plain black in front. The ear coverts and shoulders are a bit lighter than the rest of the plumage. Their appearance depends mostly on the angle of infalling sunlight. The length of the bill about equals the size of the head. In straight, level flight the tail is long and straight, with a squarish tip with rounded corners. The eyes have whitish irises. The straight, slender bill is dark-grey. The legs and feet are also dark-grey, with pink foot soles. Juveniles have fleshy gapes, dark irises and a shorter bill and tail.

Twitcher's tip

The correct identification of corvids in the field is notoriously difficult. Compared with other Australian corvids, Little Ravens have a medium-length bill (similar to the size of the head) and a squarish tip of the tail with rounded corners. If visible, e.g. when ruffled by wind, the base of feathers of ravens is grey (while those of crows have white bases). The transition from black to grey is gradual (while in crows the transition from black to white is abrupt).

Most of the birds from the Corvus family ("corvids") commonly called "crows" in South-East Australia are in fact "ravens". The most common member of this family in (near-)coastal South-East Australia is the "Australian Raven". Little Ravens usually stay inland.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Little Raven is available HERE .

NB: Reports on ebird of birds submitted by birdwatchers from the Australian Outback tend to be clustered along roads and public areas such as camp grounds; in such cases their distribution is not a good representation of the overall distribution of the species.

Little Ravens are endemic to Australia. They live in the South and South-east of the Australian continent. They are found on Eyre peninsula, SA, and eastward from there, including the south-eastern corner of SA, most of VIC and inland NSW, except the Paroo catchment and anywhere North of the Darling River. They are only occasionally found on the coastal fringe East of Melbourne and along the NSW coast.

Little Ravens can be found in many different types of habitat, except dense forest.

If the identification is correct, Little Ravens were first seen by us in 2006, 20 km South-West of Narrabri, NSW, and again in August 2008, 20 km East of Narrabri and in August 2010 30 km South of Narrabri. However, Little Ravens are uncommon around Narrabri, NSW, and have not been found there by us since then.

Little Ravens were spotted by us in the Gammon Ranges, near Balcanoona, SA, in March 2008.

M. Eaton reports finding Little Ravens at the Botanical Garden, Melbourne, VIC, in October 2017.

R. Clough reports seeing Little Ravens regularly at Raywood, near Bendigo, VIC.