While the scientific community has long argued about the distinction between ravens and crows, the difference is not so significant to the general public, who often use “crow” for both. The international collective term, “a murder of crows”, reflects a negative perception, and perhaps also the bird’s predisposition for eating carrion. The British poet laureate Ted Hughes explored the depths of grief and despair in Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow (1970). According to the literary blog The Examined Life, Crow is “a metaphor for our torn complex selves and an often absurd universe”, but playful, too: “A user of tools and technologies that can be both creative and destructive, as human technologies are.” “Eating crow” is bad news in the United States, where the phrase means that one has been shown to be wrong. However, in Australia “crow'” is more complicated. South Australians proudly use “crow-eaters” as a demonym, reminding them of the tough pioneering pastoralists who resorted to crows when there was nothing better to eat. Today both the Adelaide AFL football club and a South Australian poetry magazine take the moniker as a badge of honour. Crows and ravens are sometimes taken for granted because they are common, noisy and too interested in human activities. They are certainly not rare challenges for wild expeditioners with binoculars.