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.

Saturday 2 January 2010

Jan 2nd


Last thing yesterday night I noticed that we'd had a dusting of snow, staying on the ground due to the cold. This was still around in the morning - but no ice!
The ravens were calling loudly during the dark hour of  (6.30 a.m.) early morning, so I expected to see all six of them later in Llandaff Fields. 

We left the house around 7.40 a.m. It was very cold, the sky was clear. Dawn made the Eastern sky pale. it was an orangey pink. In the West, the moon was still huge, but had started to lose its fullness.

We heard some raven calls, but not as many or as loudly as during the dark, early hours. Then, as we came to the top of the big field, I saw two ravens sitting in the top branches of the trees in the spinney. They came down to meet us in the big field, where I fed them. 
I did not go further - Madame is not doing so well in the cold, I didn't want to imperil her health, now that she is off the antibiotics.

The pair who had waited and came to feed was my young pair. As they got their scraps, the other young pair arrived, from the quarry side. 
At first all was well, then there was a brief scuffle between three of them - it cannot have been over the food because these two pairs were quite a distance away from each other (a good 15 yards), and I was between them. They soon settled and the one raven from the second pair, who had flown up to my young pair to scrap with them, flew back to his companion.

While this was going on, I noticed a single raven sitting even further away from us, still in the big field. I hadn't seen him come, and the two pairs took no notice of him. It was not my bold raven. He got some food as well, and when I'd finished distributing all I had with me, one of the other young pair squawked and displayed the juvenile food-begging posture.

We left them, to go home, meeting Jack (a Westie) and Alison, and then Toby (a Border Collie, such a sweetie!) and Martyn. Some chatting ensued ...
Today, however, not one raven followed us from the big field. 

The snow has been thawing, the pavements and roads are wet - if its icy tomorrow, I'll try and see if I can get those early-morning calling ravens to visit our frozen little back garden ...

2 comments:

AtillaTheHoney said...

I'm thinking about that lone raven. I do remember reading about a study that followed crows - amybe it's applicable. They can have huge flocks (we had one that was easily 200 birds) = but they're all related.

Perhaps this lone raven is family?

I've been feeding the birds here ever since our massive snowfall before Chrismas. I just spread seed on the bannister of the deck.

Well, today I found out I've created a serious problem. I'm attracting bird predators - i.e., hawks. NOW WHAT?

yma said...

It is highly probable that the lone raven is related to the others - but in what relationship? Parent, cousin?
Bernd Heinrich describes that an adult, breeding pair will not just keep together, but also keep away from the young birds, who do flock together, especially in winter.
it takes a bout 5 years before corvids reach sexual maturity, so the lone raven might be an older sibling.

As for attracting bird predators to your bird feeding station - wonderful to observe, but sad for the song birds who turn into hawk dinner.

Perhaps leaving some chinks of raw meat for the hawks, away from the bird feeding station, might help?
At least, a well-fed hawk wouldn't waste time hunting smaller birds ...
On the other hand - they might love it, and come back for more.

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