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.

Wednesday 9 June 2010

June 9th


It was overcast and mild when we went out at 6.40 a.m. - not raining, but a hint of dampness in the air.

We took our usual walk to the ravens field, today accompanied by Ollie and Trixie - without mishap. Miss Sophie had tried to 'eat' Ollie a few weeks ago, so we kept them well apart.

In the ravens field, the one and only raven who came to see if we ahd some food was the companion of the bold raven. 
She also, once did her 'trick' of raising her head feathers slightly while making a soft quorking sound and clicking her beak at the same time. She'd done that in the winter. She flew off after taking some scraps - no other raven came.

We saw one in the toddlers' playground on the way back - he'd been sitting in one of the ornamental cherry trees, now in full leaf, and got irritated by a magpie landing next to him. 
He swooped to sit on the top pole of the swings. I threw a scrap into the playground and he came down to take it. 
I didn't see which raven it was. He was too far away, but knew obviously what my throwing action meant.

Later in the afternoon, I took Miss Sophie for a long walk. We went past the cricket stadium and down to the river. I was hoping she'd like the water, and that she would go in - she did, she went up to the middle of her legs and was not scared.

On the way back we saw only one single raven on the ground, in the far distance of Pontcanna Fields. 
But - there was a huge conglomeration of crows, all sitting together. I reckon there must have been about three dozen of them. 

When some took off and flew to sit in front of the lime trees, a raven call from one of the trees was very distinct. I believe that call came from the same tree we heard him call from yesterday - and it may well have been a warning call, again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi {Yma} - it's realwest again! I wasn't surprised at Miss Sophie likning the water, but what's this about her trying to eat Ollie a few weeks ago? How big/what kind of dog is Ollie?
Oh and I'm glad Sophie's training is coming along so well and I wouldn't be surprised if the 30 or more crows didn't keep the Ravens away (btw, did you know that a large number of crows is called a "Murder of Crows"? Honest!!
See you again soon!

yma said...

Hiya, realwest

i wasn't certain about Miss Sophie liking the water. Madame Dog at first had no idea why Big dog loved it so much. I think she only went in, after months, because she couldn't bear him doing something which she didn't!
She only splashed about most of the time, except when we tried to get her out, because she was shivering. she simply wasn't covered in a very thick woolly blanket like Big Dog! Only then would she swim ...
So I was pleased Miss Sophie actually went in ...
Ollie is a nice mongrel, about medium-sized, very woolly, black and tan, and a bit podgy. He is really sweet - I don't know what possessed Miss Sophie.

Yeah - I knew about the 'murder of crows' - but assumed this was so English, not many people would know what it stood for.
Did you know that a collection of ravens is called an 'unkindness of ravens'?
Not many people know that!!!!

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