Town Raven

Town Raven
In flight

ITS A DIARY !

This is a diary, or rather, field notes written up each day, with the latest entry at the top.

To get the full story, start at the bottom entry in the archive, and read upwards.
Then read the current diary entries from the bottom up as well.


Once you've got the full story, just visit and read the new story for the day!

Enjoy!

Location Map

Location Map
This shows where we walk and meet the ravens
The yellow and pink squiggly lines are two walks we take. The yellow one is the one we usually do. The squigglyness indicates how Madame visits her several important sniffing check-points!
We stop several times to feed the ravens, and you can see where they come from.

If you right-click on the image and open it in a new tab, you can then zoom in to see more details.

Monday 16 November 2009

Nov 15th, 2009 (Sunday)



We were a bit late today, seeing that it was Sunday.
It was calm, sunny, a bit cooler than yesterday - and no wind!

We ran into Marianne and Billy again, and chatted a bit. Marianne told me that she saw me and the ravens the other day, with the ravens following me! While we chatted, we observed two of them flying from Pontcanna Fields over to the ravens' field, and I thought these must be 'mine'.

There were no calls, no squawks, it was all very quiet as we went to the top of the big field, Madame playing a bit with the ball.
Also - the ravens did not come to meet us at the top of the big field - nor were they present in the ravens' field when we crossed into it.

They eventually did turn up, however, and we had the usual feeding routine.
As noted yesterday, when I threw one scrap quite close to the fence, the bold raven first approached it, and then hopped back a bit and put his beak to the ground, seemingly licking the damp grass.

The timid raven did something new today: at one point it fluffed itself up and assumed the 'begging' posture which the juveniles adopt, just after they've flown their nest, when they still ask the parent birds to feed them.

The ravens now seem to feel quite secure inside the fenced-off plot: Bart appeared, the black, young Labradoodle, and Otty (a younger, chocolate Labradoodle), both coming up to us, to greet Madame and me. The ravens just hopped a bit towards the middle of the plot but did not fly off.

Also noteworthy: whilst I was feeding 'my' ravens in the plot, they suddenly stopped looking at me and flew onto the fence posts: quite high up a group of four birds flew over us, from the toddlers' playground/Pontcanna Fields, in a diagonal direction.
I couldn't make out what they were - too high up - but these were definitely not sea gulls or ducks or cormorants. Might have been ravens: too small a group for jackdaws or crows.

We went round the spinney at the tennis court side again - and it looks as if the ravens have indeed understood this 'signal'.
The bold one flew to sit on one of the smallish trees in the spinney, right next to where we walk, and cawed a few times. He did not follow us further, but looking back I saw him on the ground, drinking from the huge puddle in front of the changing rooms there.

Tomorrow I'll see if they follow us back to the big field, for more food, when we go round the spinney the other way.



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