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.

Thursday 14 January 2010

Jan 14th


It was grey and damp again, but hardly any breeze. The temperature was positively balmy, compared to the last couple of weeks, being just above freezing.
Madame enjoyed lots of rolls in the still soft snow - and sneaked some snow-eating in as well!

We had heard raven calls before we left the house at 7.50 a.m. - again coming from Pontcanna Fields and sounding quite a distance away. We heard these calls as well when we got to Llandaff Fields, and there were some coming from the field next to the big road (that's not on the image above). 

We saw one pair of ravens sitting in the big trees to the left of the spinney - but only after we crossed from the big field into the ravens field. 
One made a soft quorking sound. 
They were the quarry pair, very skittish, staying well away from us - a good five yards. They did not like Madame staring at them, and picked up the scraps only after we had turned away.

As we got back into the big field the 'more-food' way, they made some calls but did not follow. Instead, we heard more calls, coming from the allotments - and my bold pair came swooping in over the spinney, from the allotments and Pontcanna Fields!

The bold raven has become an expert now: the scraps bounced a bit when landing on the hard-frozen ground, and he picked them on the bounce, every time! 
He did something else amazing: his crop was full, so he kept one piece in his beak, which stayed open - and then he called, with that piece still in his open beak!
His companion only got her scraps once he flew off to hide them, well behind the spinney. She seems quite used to this now - she just waits patiently until he flies off.

The quarry pair came back as well - they kept well away. But then they called - and lo and behold: both the bold raven and his companion swooped onto them and beat them with their wings. Lots of squawking - and after they all settled, both bold ravens displayed to each other, fluffing up their feathers, bowing to each other, nearly beak-to-beak. 

Then they came back to us - we hadn't moved. and of course they got more food - the quarry pair got their scraps once the bold pair had flown off to hide their loot.

As we went home, the bold pair went back to where they came from - Pontcanna Fields - but the quarry pair, after a while, flew into the big trees at the toddlers' playground, eyeing us, and getting the rest of the scraps which they only picked up after we'd gone some distance.

Madame had a slight attack again as we came back to the house, so I took her to the vet. Antibiotics again for Madame ...

Rain predicted for tomorrow, and even balmier temperatures - so there will be some thawing. I may have to go out without Madame.

Blog Archive

Followers

Powered By Blogger