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.

Friday 12 February 2010

Feb 12th


It was as good as broad daylight when I left the house at 7.30 a.m. Still cold, but dry, and the wind hardly noticeable. The ground was frozen hard, but there was no frost on the grass, which looked dun-coloured and dead. More clounds than yesterday meant that the sun was not visible.

There were numerous raven calls coming from the boundaries of Llandaff Fields, and the first raven I saw was again checking out the waste bins and the food waste in the first field. He flew into the huge lime tree, eyeing me, but it was not one of 'my' ravens. I think he's the one I've seen going through the food waste bags, and he is probably also the one I saw a few days ago at the bottom of the Horse Chestnut Avenue near the big road. He flew off.

I walked to the ravens field, no other ravens to be seen - but lots of dogs! Must be the increasing daylight which gets them all out ... While they chased each other, the ravens preferred watching from the sycamore at the ravens field, some flying off again, not being happy with being chased by some juvenile spaniels, who hugely enjoyed doing just that. 

In the end, there were only two coming to the ground, eventually. One was my bold raven, the other, I think, was one of the young pair. It is their behaviour which allows me to identify them. The bold raven's companion has taken to erecting her head feathers, and she is less shy that the one who came to the ground today.

The bold raven again scoffed as much as he could, eating quite a few scraps himself before storing the rest in his gullet and flying off. As the ground is frozen hard, none of the ravens can make their food-hiding holes quickly enough so that dogs won't get at them.
 
I walked back to the big field, only the bold raven following me briefly for a few mores craps - but the dog population increased even more, so he prudently vanished as well.

The ravens must have started to build their nests for this year's breeding season, I think. That could be the explanation for their coming singly and not in pairs. With the dawn now starting perceptibly earlier, and thus the dog walkers coming out earlier, it seems a good idea for me to do the same ... we'll see how that works out after the weekend - daylight or not, most people like their weekend lay-ins, thus I expect the park to be less populated tomorrow and Sunday, giving me the chance to meet my bold raven again.

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