May 26th

The strong wind from the NW made it feel rather cold early this morning. We left the house at 6.55 a.m. - only hints of sunshine, and no raven calls.

Since there were already park dept. workers in Llandaff Fields, we turned to Pontcanna Fields for the morning walk. Unfortunately, this is where the NW winds has a big 'fetch', i.e. blows unimpeded, and we shivered ...!

No ravens came, but we met Marianne and Billy, who can carry two tennis balls in his mouth! He and Miss Sophie were not interested in each other, so both enjoyed their various sniffs and wriggles-on-the-back (Miss Sophie!).

Later in the afternoon we went to the ravens field. There were quite a few people, children and dogs about, in spite of the much cooler weather, so I didn't expect to see much of my ravens.

The former enclosure in the top part of the big field has again been fenced in - some idiots simply took no notice of the new grass seeds which had been put there earlier.

In the ravens field we had to walk right across to the trees at the far side, and then along towards the wall to the allotments, before a raven came. 

It was astounding that he actually did come, because in the meantime, the groundsmen had arrived with their vans and implements, and were preparing the former 'raven' enclosure for the next game of cricket.

It was the raven with the Roman nose - still skittish, still letting us walk off before approaching the scrap. 

Then a second raven came - the companion of the bold raven. Both accompanied us as we walked towards the tennis courts, both flying off with their scraps, then appearing again.

We walked towards the spinney, and I heard a soft quorking coming from the huge lime tree. The companion of the bold raven had flown off, but the young raven was still on the ground, further away from us.

And then a raven came swooping from that tree - it was my bold raven! 

He scoffed six small scraps, picking up one on the bounce - only he does that! - and coming to within a couple of feet of us. 

He also took one scrap I had meant for the young raven - but that one wisely did not enter into a dispute with my bold raven, who finally flew off over the sheds towards Pontcanna Fields.

That is the direction to the nest, btw.

Next, his companion appeared again - it was astonishing that the ravens disregarded all the other people, dogs, lawn mowers etc. 

In the end, I ran out of scraps and we went home. 

Miss Sophie is now getting better at her 'stay' exercises ... lots of opportunity to practise them when the ravens are around!