It was a cold morning again, but dry. The North-Easterly wind, which had been forecast, was barely noticeable when we left the house at 7.30 a.m. The sky was a dark grey, with the sunrise looking like someone was rolling up the sky from the East, like a curtain.
We had been hearing raven calls earlier, as in the last few days, so it was no surprise when we saw not one single raven all the way to the ravens field.
Then two came, the young pair again.
Interestingly, they did not appear to be too fussed with Madame being around, off the lead, when they were in the open field, and walked to about 2 yards within me and Madame. They got some scraps there, then we went up to the enclosure, where I gave them some more.
For some reason, they are much more wary when they are inside the enclosure, still preferring to keep to the site opposite from where I throw the scraps. They flew up to sit on the fence posts when we left to go back home, the 'more-food'-way. One of them croaked a few times, fluffing himself up.
Then, they followed us by swooping into the big trees bordering the footpath between the ravens field and the big field. From there, they swooped down onto the ground.
While I was throwing them more scraps, two more ravens came, from the direction of the old quarries. These were however not my bold raven, but the other young pair. The four of them walked a bit up to us, to withig three yards, and got more scraps.
Then I saw another pair, quite a bit away, closer to the playground. I walked up to them, but couldn't make out if this was my bold lot. I think so - they picked up the scraps in no time.
As I turned my back on them, I saw that two of the other four were flapping wings at each other, a bit like a fight. Then both of those fighting ravens assumed the begging position of the juveniles, bowing to each other, fluffed up.
We were a good ten yards away by then - so I don't know what made them do it - nor do I know what that means! The other two ravens of that lot did not get involved.
Walking back home on the footpath, the pair which had come last flew into a tree a bit ahead of us, and one of them made a few beautiful, soft, croaking calls when we were right underneath that tree. He got one of Madame's kernels as reward!
Madame likes being off the lead - she gets lots of rewards for not chasing teh ravens, and she seems to have made the first tiny steps towards getting better.
Having all six ravens around again was wonderful.
Tomorrow will be cold again, and as today, dog walkers will be out much later, so we and the ravens may have the park to ourselves, for a little bit, as we did today.
