There were many raven calls early this morning, around 6.15 a.m., coming from Pontcanna Fields but sounding much closer than usual.
I left the house at 7.35 a.m. It was grey and clouds covered the sky, but their tops were tinged with pastel shades of dawn. It felt milder than the weather forecasters had predicted - still cold enough, mind! - and ravens called from the boundaries of Llandaff Fields.
No dogs were around, and at first no ravens either. One did turn up as I got to the enclosure at the top of the big field: one of the quarry pair. While I got the scraps of food out of my jacket pocket, the bold raven also turned up. Then both their companions appeared.
Once the bold raven had taken off with loads of food inside him, the young pair joined us. Interestingly, both the young and the quarry pair have now also split into one raven trying to get all the food, the other waiting. This has however not changed their degree of timidness, with the quarry pair still being the most timid.
Before the bold pair came back - his companion had again taken off after him, after picking up two scraps for herself - the young pair got themselves into a tussle. They both managed to pick up the same scrap, so there was a raven at each end of the little strip of fatty meat, tugging at it until it came apart in the middle. Both then took off.
(The scraps are meat off-cuts which I slice into strips of about 3/4 inch length and 1/8 inch width, btw.)
The bold pair came back for some more food while the other two pairs had flown away. Then Bart came bouncing up to me, and as he's big, the ravens fled. By that time I had fed them all the scraps I'd got anyway, so home I went.
It looks as of the quality of day light determines when and if the bold pair appears. The other two now seem to hang about, waiting for me to get to the top of the big field before they come. I suspect that for these ravens the presence or not of dogs also plays a part. The bold pair don't seem too fussed about dogs while they're still hungry. Once they've had quite a bit of food, they leave in any case.
We'll see how this works out tomorrow.
