Are the Night's Watch Crows and the Stark Wolves supposed to imply a "wolf-bird" relationship?

Question

The raven/crow is sometimes called a Wolf-bird due to the symbiotic relationship they have with wolves. They tend to signal prey and carcasses to wolves, who then kill and guard the food, which they share with the birds.

Further into it, wolves and crows are commonly paired in fantasy and myth as well.

In Game of Thrones the Night's Watch, nicknamed Crows, serve as lookouts for the seven kingdoms with the Starks, whose Sigil is the wolf, acting as the suppliers, guards, and backup for the Watch.

Is this relationship, which mimics the real life wolf-bird relationship, intentional? Or is it just coincidence? Is there any in-Universe reference to this, or word of God comparison by the staff?

Answer 1

This is unlikely to be deliberate, since it is ravens which are often referred to as wolf-birds, not crows.

This turns out to be surprisingly difficult to corroborate - some sources that don't look particularly reliable include

• http://wolfandravens.blogspot.co.uk/
• http://wolveswolves.tumblr.com/post/43801048185/the-relationship-between-wolves-and-ravens-ravens

On Wikipedia, the entries for ravens and crows do not mention wolves at all, and the entry for wolves simply says, when talking about wolves habitats,

The odour of urine and rotting food emanating from the denning area often attracts scavenging birds such as magpies and ravens.

The book Mind of the Raven: Investigations and Adventures with Wolf-Birds by Bernd Heinrich would probably be the place to look for more information on this topic. As it stands, given that the connection is so esoteric, I don't think you can read anything too deep into the nicknames "wolves" and "crows" in George R. R. Martin's novels.