Ravens

It seems I never came back and wrote anything about my ravens when I had a scare (one disappeared) last spring. The pair did show up and they had 3 rambunctious offspring. I think of this mainly because this morning the ravens had sex about ten feet from my window on a giant snow bank in my yard. It is a privilege to witness this stuff, seriously. I knew something seemed different from their demeanor; they both fluffed out their head feathers so it appeared to be standing straight out. It gives them a decidedly different profile. I see them create this 'big hair' expression sometimes, but never in tandem like they were and then they did a wing dance where it looked like they were pushing out elbows--it was not a wing flapping ordeal, just the small elbow movements. This all made them look very angular and festive with their big fluffy heads. He literally stood on her back (these are large, hefty birds) as she hunkered down in the snow. And then it was over. I took another sip of coffee and went back to work after writing "raven sex" on my daily calendar.

This past summer I made the mistake of interacting with their fledglings they brought to my yard daily to be fed. The past few years I just fed them and did not get involved. This time I ended up spending time letting them get used to me and one got brave enough to take stuff from my hand. They were hilarious to watch as they picked up EVERYTHING with their beaks and tasted it to see if it was food. They kept shredding the plants I had in a hanging planter and I had to keep stopping them from digging up my perennials in my garden just for fun (their fun, not mine). They were pretty destructive...but funny. I had read in Heinrich's, "Mind of the Raven" that they do not like the taste of bees and I got to witness this in action one day when I was sitting in the yard with the three young ravens all quite close to me--a bee buzzed by and to my surprise one of the raven's snapped at it and actually caught it...it was luck, not skill...anyways, I kept watching to see what would happen. He spit the bee out onto the grass, tried tasting it one more time and walked away from it. It's strange that they really "taste" their food but don't seem to have much of a sense of smell. It must be a different way of tasting than what we are familiar with.

They played like puppies. I watched them fight over a stick and one of the ravens ended up standing on the stick taking a ride while another one pulled it trying to get it for itself. They were VERY noisy, especially before their voices changed. I began to realize I had created a problem when they would stay at my place all day long and their parents would be off, probably dining on spawning salmon in the creek a couple of miles away. The three babies even ended up getting so bold as to coming on my deck rail--their parents would never dare to get that close. The male regularly perches on my car's luggage rack, that's as personal as they get. Anyways, I ended up with these three huge, immature birds standing on my deck rail a couple of feet from my living room window and basically Screaming!!! for food. I ended up having to apply tough love and put up with their very sad begging for about a week before they would leave and stop the painful (audible and heart-string) begging. I learned my lesson not to insert myself into the grand scheme of things. Each year the parents kick their fledglings to the curb and stop allowing them to come to my yard to feed. I hope my interference didn't preclude them from learning to fend for themselves. By fall, it is back to just my pair of ravens till early summer comes around and more mouths to feed, for a while.