Dennis Forsyth writes:
I have noticed that the ravens in my vicinity have been bringing their fledglings out into the world in relatively large numbers this year. I suspect that most nests are now emptied. This morning a flock of 30+ ravens were foraging at the water’s edge below our house. From a distance it’s hard to distinguish the young with precision but certainly at least a dozen of these birds were adolescent.
This behaviour- the bringing the year’s young together into largish mixed flocks, and then engaging in what I consider normal raven activities, but doing it communally- happens every year around this time. With all due recognition of the dangers of anthropomorphizing, I can’t help seeing this as a kind of raven summer school for the kids. I think the young get socialized and learn a number of important raven skills through this process. And judging by the amount of vocalizing that goes on I suspect that there might be some raven language classes going on. I am increasingly fascinated by these astonishing birds.
I followed the flock of ravens from my place north toward Cable Beach this afternoon and found them using the strong up-draft against the high banks near Cable to engage in some astonishing aerobatics. I know that the scientific types tell us that these mock fights are basically intended to establish status within a group, but I have a niggling suspicion that there is also a lot of play and pure joy involved. In the 40 minutes I spent watching and photographing I did not see a single instance of one bird actually striking or even contacting another. It just looked like a lot of fun. Two shots out of several hundred and one of those showing a raven upside down.
By the way, what unimaginative, unromantic ornithologist had the gall to name these guys ‘Common Ravens’. There ain’t one damned ‘common’ thing about them.
My experience in past years tells me that whenever we have a southeast breeze creating an updraft along this section of Lambert Channel for the next few weeks this air show will be occurring fairly regularly. Dennis
