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.

Sunday 7 February 2010

Sunday, Feb 7th


A grey, cold and grim morning. Before I left the house at 7.30 a.m., I had heard soft raven calls coming from Pontcanna Fields, and Robins and Blackbirds singing. There were grey clouds all over, no hint of dawn sunlight. Also, as time went on, the icy wind from the East picked up and made the walk uncomfortable.

I went along the pink route (see area photo above) - no ravens, although I did hear them call. In the ravens field, one raven flew to sit in the big sycamore, the other went straight into the lower enclosure. The 'tree' raven came to the ground - one of my young pair. He got some scraps - again, he waited until I had turned my back and started to walk off before he came to pick them up. The raven in the lower enclosure flew straight into the upper, usual one, when I started to walk in that direction.

As now usual, both kept their distance, both picked up only two scraps before flying off.
And only one raven followed me to the top of the big field ('more food way'), flying into the sycamore, then onto the ground. He did give me a nice, soft quorking sound, sitting in the tree, though.
After picking up a couple more scraps, he left and didn't come back.

One raven showed up when I was near the bottom of the big field - it might have been one of the quarry pair, but I can't be sure - I didn't see the brown patch on his chest. 

I didn't find the bold pair - my suspicion that they might be in the field next to the road was unfounded.

The seagulls did circle above when I started out, but had settled on the ground by the time I got to the ravens field. So today their behaviour had no influence on the brief scrap-pickings by the ravens.

I now think that they are making these short foraging visits because they might have started to build nests, or at least might have started to help their parents with nest building, if they are last year's generation. 
Corvids (that's ravens, crows, jackdaws, rooks and magpies) are known for having what is called 'helpers at the nest' in scientific literature. These are the previous generations who help their parents until they become sexually mature themselves - around the age of five.

It is still winter here - but without the snow, just the arctic wind.
I pray all of you keep safe, who are affected by 'snowmaggedon'!

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