Sunday, March 14th

It was again a cold, dry morning, with frost on the grass. There was another gentle sunrise, and the robins and blackbirds had sung their hearts out for an hour already. The great tits take over once the sun is up. 

There had been no raven calls, though.

I left the house at 6.45 and found Llandaff Fields empty of dogs and their walkers, until I got right to the middle of the big field. Then Otis turned up, full of bounce, very playful.

Up until then, there had not been one raven, either heard or seen. 

When Otis and his owner had walked off, I started to throw scraps into the enclosure - it was very odd, not having one raven around. There were no seagulls circling overhead, nor any other birds. The sky was as clear as can be - not even a cloud to be seen.

Eventually, as I was turning away, one lone raven came from the toddlers' playground, but kept a long distance away. Then the quarry pair came, without any noise, and picked up some of the scraps. 

As they left the enclosure and went to the ground where I stood next to it, the lone raven came up to them. All three stood together, no wing flapping, no kerfuffle. 

Then a pair came from the ravens field - I assume this was the bold pair because this is where they have been coming from for the last week or so. But the did not approach me, nor did they pick up any scraps. 

They stood there for a bit, then flew off - as did the other three.

It was very mystifying: there were no dogs at all, no seagulls, no other birds, no people doing exercises.

I have no idea what has been going on. 

It was very, very odd.