What Do Crows Eat? The Ultimate Guide to the Crow Diet

Crows have one of the most diverse diets in the entire world of birds. As true omnivores, they readily eat everything from seeds, fruits & grains to insects, small mammals, carrion, and even bird eggs!

But while they’re capable of eating almost anything, not all foods are created equal in terms of nutrition or preference. Crow diets often shift dramatically according to different habitats and season.

So what do crows actually prefer and rely on for day-to-day feeding?

Knowing their diet staples versus opportunistic snacks is crucial for many reasons. Whether you’re simply curious, trying to understand their behavior, or even considering to try and offer them food.

Let’s explore the fascinating and dynamic crow diet…

What Do Crows Eat? A Detailed Look at Their Diet

Plant Matter: Seeds, Nuts, Grains & Fruits

Don’t let their reputation for scavenging fool you. A big part of every crow’s diet comes directly from plants. Being adaptable omnivores, they readily take advantage of seasonal abundance.

• Seeds and Grains: Crows often forage on the ground for spilled or naturally occurring seeds and grains. In agricultural areas, this behavior can sometimes bring them into conflict with humans, where flocks of crows can damage newly planted fields or consume ripening grains like corn if easier food isn’t available.
• Nuts: When available, crows readily eat nuts like acorns, walnuts, pecans, etc. Their strong beaks can handle some shells, and they are known to cache (store) nuts for later consumption. This is one of the great examples of planning and memory that crows are so well known for.
• Fruits and Berries: Especially during late summer and fall, fruits and berries become a major opportunistic food source. Crows can sometimes be seen plucking berries (like elderberries, cherries, dogwood berries) or cultivated fruits. This is especially common in orchards or urban and suburban areas, where they can also scavenge discarded fruit and fruit on the ground (like fallen apples).

Insects, Worms & Other Invertebrates

Often overlooked, invertebrates provide a crucial source of protein in a crow’s diet. Plus they’re everywhere and easy to find when nothing else is available!

Crows find these small creatures using several techniques:

• Surface Foraging: They actively patrol lawns, fields, and shorelines, picking off readily visible insects like grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars from the surface or among low vegetation.
• Probing & Digging: Crows frequently use their strong beaks to probe into soft soil, flip over leaves or bark, and dig shallow holes to uncover hidden food sources. This is how they commonly find earthworms, grubs (like beetle larvae), and other soil-dwelling invertebrates. This behavior is particularly noticeable on lawns after rain or in garden beds.
• Opportunistic Finds: They won’t pass up other easy invertebrate meals like spiders or even snails when encountered.

Carrion & Scavenged Food

Crows are perhaps most famous for their role as scavengers, often associated with graveyards and battle scenes in movies & television. Their intelligence and adaptability allow them to exploit readily available food sources many other birds ignore, including carrion (dead animals), human garbage, and even food stolen directly from other predators.

• Natural Carrion: Crows are quick to locate and feed on animals killed by predators, disease, or accidents. Roadkill is a particularly common and easily accessible source of meat and fat. They will also scavenge larger carcasses left behind by other animals.
• Stealing from Predators (Kleptoparasitism): Crows are clever opportunists and aren’t shy about stealing meals from successful hunters. They are known to harass predators like eagles, hawks, ospreys, and even mammals to make them drop their catch, or they’ll sneak in to grab scraps while the predator is distracted. Common stolen items include fish, small mammals, or parts of larger prey. This behavior further showcases their intelligence and bold feeding strategies.
• Human Garbage & Landfills: Crows have expertly adapted to living alongside humans, learning that our garbage often contains edible treasures. They frequently raid open trash cans, dumpsters, and landfills, sorting through refuse to find discarded food scraps. This reliable, year-round food source is a major reason why crows thrive in urban and suburban environments.

Hunting Small Animals

Scavenging may be their default, but it may surprise you to learn that crows are also quite capable hunters. This is especially impressive because crows are not birds of prey, but that doesn’t stop them from going after smaller creatures.

• Common Prey: Their targets often include small mammals like mice and voles, especially in fields or open areas. They are also adept at catching amphibians (frogs, salamanders) and reptiles (small lizards, snakes), particularly near water sources or rocky areas where these prey hide.
• How Do Crows Hunt? Crows typically hunt by perching high to get a good vantage point, scanning the ground below. When prey is spotted, they swoop down to strike with their sharp beaks. If they miss on the first attempt, crows will follow and make repeated attempts until they get their target. They may also walk along the ground, actively searching and flipping over debris to uncover hidden prey.

Bird Eggs & Nestlings

One of the most well-known (and sometimes controversial) aspects of the crow diet is their predation on other birds’ nests. This is a prime example of their opportunistic intelligence during the avian breeding season (typically spring and early summer).

• Nest Raiding: Crows are intelligent and observant predators of nests. They actively search for them and will readily consume vulnerable eggs and nestlings when discovered. The most common targets are medium sized songbirds with relatively accessible open-cup nests, such as American Robins and various blackbird species.
• Finding Nests: Crows begin searching for nests in mid-late spring under the canopy cover of fully leafed out trees. They sit and watch parent birds moving back and forth from the nest or potentially by hearing the begging calls of nestlings.
• Crow Alarms From Songbirds: Many nest targets have special high-pitched alarm calls they use to warn their partner when nest robbing crows are lurking near. This can help you identify nest robbing crows by studying the canopy as they can be surprisingly sneaky about it. I covered these alarms in another article about robin calls.

Coastal & Aquatic Foods

For crow populations living near coastlines, rivers, lakes, or estuaries, aquatic environments offer a rich additional source of food.

• Shoreline Foraging: They patrol shorelines at low tide, searching for exposed mollusks like clams, mussels, and snails. They areOkay, let’ known to drop hard-shelled prey from a height onto rocks to break them open.
• Fish & Crustaceans: Crows will scavenge dead or dying fish washed ashore or left by receding tides. This also includes other small crustaceans found along the water like crabs.

How Habitat & Season Shape the Crow Diet

As we’ve seen, crows eat an incredible variety of foods.

However, what they focus on day-to-day, is heavily influenced by two key factors: where they live (habitat) and the time of year (season). Crows are masters of adapting their diet to what’s most readily available.

What Is Crow Habitat? Urban Scavengers vs. Wilderness Foragers

Crows are true “habitat generalists,” meaning they can thrive almost anywhere, from dense forests to city centers. This drastically shapes their diet.

In urban and suburban environments, crows cleverly exploit human presence. They become expert scavengers, relying heavily on human garbage, discarded food in parks, and accessible landfills.

Lawns also provide easy access to earthworms and insects, while ornamental trees offer fruits and nuts. While this provides a reliable, year-round food source, it can lead to dependence on less nutritious items and contribute to their reputation as pests.

In contrast, crows in more natural or wilderness settings rely more heavily on wild foods.

Their diet involves more active foraging for native seeds, nuts, and fruits, more intense hunting for insects and small animals, and a greater focus on finding natural carrion or raiding bird nests for eggs and young.

While the diet might be more naturally diverse, food sources can be less consistent compared to human-subsidized areas, and they may face more competition for nest sites from birds like ravens.

Seasonal Shifts: Eating Through the Year

A crow’s menu also changes significantly with the seasons:

Spring: As temperatures rise, the focus shifts to protein needed for the breeding season. Not just feeding themselves but also their own nestlings. Crows actively hunt newly emerging insects, earthworms, and notoriously raid the nests of other birds for eggs and vulnerable nestlings.

Summer: This is a time of plenty. Insects are abundant, and wild berries and early fruits begin to ripen, providing easy calories. Recently fledged young crows are also learning to forage during this period.

Fall: Often considered the harvest season, fall brings a bounty of nuts (like acorns and walnuts), mature fruits, and berries. Crows capitalize on this by feasting and actively caching (storing) nuts for the leaner months ahead. Waste grains from agricultural fields may also become available.

Winter: With insects gone and fruits depleted, winter survival often depends on resourcefulness. Crows rely heavily on their stored nuts, any available waste grain, scavenged carrion (roadkill becomes more visible), and, especially in populated areas, human garbage.

Feeding Crows: What to Know

Many people are fascinated by crows and enjoy seeing them up close, which might lead you to wonder if they have any favourite foods.

Like all animals driven by survival, crows prioritize finding the most energy-rich foods for the least amount of effort. Given their incredibly varied omnivorous diet, this includes high value natural foods like nuts (acorns, peanuts, walnuts), protein-rich insects and grubs, fruit & waste grains, eggs & meat.

But this also means crows quickly learn to favor easy and unnatural (and unhealthy) handouts like french fries, bread crusts, and discarded food scraps.

In wild conditions, crows have to work and do complex problem solving to feed themselves, but while offering human food may seem like an effective way to attract crows, it’s not necessarily the best thing for their overall wellbeing and the wider ecosystem.

In excess, too much feeding especially with unnatural foods can have negative results for crows and humans alike. So, if you do choose to offer something occasionally, what’s the best approach?

Is It Okay To Feed Crows?

While regularly feeding wild crows is generally discouraged (see reasons below), if you do decide to feed them, it’s best to offer things that still require crows to do a bit of work.

Unsalted peanuts in the shell are an excellent choice. They provide a nice snack, but the shell still requires crows to work and problem-solve, mimicking natural foraging challenges more closely than easy handouts.

What to AVOID: Steer clear of processed human foods, salted items, bread, and meat scraps (they get enough bulky options from garbage). Offering things like cooked meats or eggs, while they might eat them, risks creating unnatural dependency and doesn’t foster a healthy wildlife interaction.

Why I Always Advise Caution: The Ethics of Feeding Crows

• Artificial Population Increase: Consistent feeding can unnaturally boost local crow numbers as explored in the following video I made about recent massive increases in crow populations.

These increasing crow populations can have a variety of ecological impacts such as harming sensitive songbird populations through nest predation and competition for food.

• Dependency & Reduced Foraging: Too much feeding can also cause crows to become more reliant on humans, losing vital natural foraging skills. When they spend less time searching widely for natural foods, they may also perform fewer beneficial ecological roles, such as potentially consuming fewer ticks or other pest insects they would normally encounter while foraging on the ground.
• Poor Nutrition & Disease: Human-provided food often lacks balanced nutrition, and feeding stations can spread disease.
• Nuisance & Conflicts: Attracts large groups, potentially causing noise/mess issues and attracting rodents.
• Legality: Check local regulations – feeding wildlife is often discouraged or prohibited.

Instead of direct feeding, also consider providing clean water in a bird bath and improve the natural habitat by cultivating a diverse yard with native plants providing natural food sources (nuts, berries, insects) for the entire ecosystem.

What’s good for nature is good for crows!

Crow Intelligence & Fascinating Feeding Habits

Even beyond their foraging, how crows get their food showcases their remarkable intelligence and adaptability. They aren’t just passive foragers; they actively solve problems and even use tools related to feeding.

• Problem-Solving for Food: Crows are famous for their complex problem-solving abilities. They’ve been observed using cars to crack hard nuts (dropping them into traffic lanes), bending wire to create hooks to retrieve food, and remembering human faces associated with food offerings.
• Food Caching (Storing): As mentioned earlier, their habit of caching nuts and other items for later requires significant spatial memory and planning – remembering not only where they hid food but also monitoring potential thieves (like other crows or squirrels!).
• Food Washing/Dunking: Some crows, particularly American Crows, have been observed dunking hard or dry food items (like bread) into water before eating.
• Learning & Social Transmission: Crows learn new feeding techniques by observing each other. If one crow discovers a novel food source or method (like how to open a tricky garbage can), others in the group often quickly learn and adopt the strategy.

These behaviors highlight that a crow’s diet isn’t just about opportunity, but also about applying their brainpower to exploit resources effectively.

Conclusion: The Adaptable Omnivore

So, what do crows eat? The simple answer is: almost anything!

As highly intelligent and adaptable omnivores, their diet is incredibly flexible, shifting with the seasons and adapting to vastly different habitats, from deep woods to bustling city centers.

Understanding the crow’s dynamic diet gives us a deeper appreciation for these common yet remarkable birds. By observing what they eat and how they get it, we gain insight into their intelligence and their vital role within the ecosystem.

If you want to learn more about crow behavior, I have another article that shares more about their foraging habits, mating/courtship, territorial behavior and predator mobbing.