Common raven

Ravens live in many parts of the world.

They live in hot deserts, on snowy tundra, in forests, on mountains and by the sea. Some even live in cities.

Ravens live across most of the Northern Hemisphere: in North America, Europe, Asia and North Africa. Audubon calls the raven remarkably adaptable, and Cornell lists forests, beaches, islands, mountains, deserts, grasslands, farms, tundra and even floating ice.

They do well around people, on farms and at the edges of towns, and some live in big cities such as Los Angeles. Most ravens stay in the same area all year.

IUCN's 2025 global assessment lists the raven as native across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central and East Asia, Canada, the United States, Mexico and northern Central America, from Guatemala to Nicaragua. Cornell describes nearly any habitat except eastern forests and the open Great Plains in North America: forests, beaches, islands, chaparral, sagebrush, mountains, deserts, grasslands, farmland, tundra and ice floes.

People have helped ravens spread: artificial ponds and irrigation let them survive in some deserts, and garbage feeds them in some forests. Ravens are mostly permanent residents, though Audubon notes some wander south in fall and winter.

Ravens are very clever birds.

They can solve puzzles. In one test, ravens picked a tool and saved it to use later.

Cornell's ornithologists call ravens among the smartest of all birds. In a 2017 study at Lund University in Sweden, five ravens learned to use a stone tool to open a puzzle box. Later, with no box in sight, they had to choose the right tool from a set of objects and keep it until the box came back.

The ravens chose the right tool nearly 80 percent of the time. They also saved a bottle cap they could trade for food later.

Cornell calls ravens among the smartest of all birds, with a reputation for solving ever more complicated problems invented by scientists, and notes they can work together to solve novel problems. In a 2017 study in Science led by Mathias Osvath of Lund University with graduate student Can Kabadayi, five hand-raised ravens chose a stone tool over distracter objects nearly 80 percent of the time, 15 minutes before they could use it, and used it successfully 86 percent of the time (Scientific American's report). They also chose a bottle-cap token to barter with later, even with a 17-hour delay.

Other researchers urged caution: the birds might simply have learned to associate the tool with good food, and it is not clear how well results from five birds apply to other ravens.

Ravens build big nests of sticks on cliffs or in tall trees.

The babies hatch with closed eyes and only a little fluff. Mom and Dad bring them food.

Raven pairs usually stay together for life. They nest early in the year on cliffs, in tall trees or on structures such as towers and bridges. The female does most of the building, weaving sticks about 90 centimeters long into a basket that can be 1.5 meters across.

She lays three to seven greenish or bluish eggs, often blotched with brown. The chicks hatch with closed eyes and only a few tufts of gray down. Both parents feed them until they leave the nest, about five to six weeks later.

Pairs usually mate for life and defend territories even in winter (RSPB); ravens begin breeding at 2 to 4 years old (Cornell). Nests go on cliffs (usually under an overhang), in trees or on towers, poles, billboards and bridges. The female does most of the building over about 9 days: sticks about 3 feet (0.9 meters) long form a basket up to 5 feet across, with an inner cup lined with mud, wool, fur, bark or grass. Nests are often reused.

Clutches are 3 to 7 greenish or bluish eggs, mottled with brown. Cornell gives incubation as 20 to 25 days and the nestling period as 28 to 50 days; Audubon says the female incubates, fed by the male, and young leave about 5 to 6 weeks after hatching. The oldest known wild raven was at least 22 years 7 months old.